George Dureau
New Orleans artist George Dureau created this poster for the Mardi Gras season of 1979, and it remains a favorite print combining the city’s favorite festivity with George’s distinctive art. Dureau is of course iconic in New Orleans, so to learn more about him just Google and you will find a flood of information. The print is framed, but there is a crack in the glass; rather than replace it and take the chance of another break during shipping, I have reduced the price to cover the cost of new glass, which you can pick up cheaply at any frame shop (hint: don’t let them upsell you to museum glass; it’s rarely necessary).
Artist George Dureau, New Orleans legend
George Dureau was one of New Orleans’ major 20th-century artists (b. 1930, d. 2014). His drawing style is instantly recognizable, as he was a notable draftsman, but he is just as well known for his photography. His pictures often included dwarves and amputees – not as a sort of freak show, but in order to expand the notion of beauty and “rightness.” His photos and drawings of black men inspired Robert Mapplethorpe, who was a friend. Both worked in a classical, formal tradition, but with a transgressive, contemporary flavor. Dureau is an icon in the history of New Orleans art.
George Dureau (1930-2014) was a New Orleans born and based painter, sculptor, and photographer known for his focus on the male figure. His paintings command regional and national recognition, and draw on classical and baroque traditions. His photographs of nudes, street people, and people who are maimed and deformed (often figures also incorporated within his paintings and sculptures), have garnered international acclaim. Often compared to Robert Mapplethorpe’s work, Dureau’s black male nudes predate Mapplethorpe’s Black Book pictures by several years. Also classically formal, they distinguish themselves from Mapplethorpe’s work by the nature of the connection between photographer and subject. Dureau’s career has been the subject of retrospectives at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art (2006 and 2011) and the New Orleans Museum of Art (2009). The first exhibition of his photographs in New York (at Higher Pictures) was in 2012. Immersed in New Orleans’s unique art and culture throughout his life, Dureau became a widely known character of the French Quarter.