After Enrique

Now on View at Ogden Museum, the Work of Enrique Alférez is a Permanent Exhibition in New Orleans' Public Spaces

by Brad Rhines & Julie Riley

All Photos by Julie Riley

When the Ogden Museum of Southern Art unveiled a new exhibition of works by sculptor Enrique Alférez last week, the institution also brought a piece of New Orleans history into focus.

Alférez, born in 1901 in Zacatecas, Mexico, and joined the army of Pancho Villa at age 12. After the Mexican Revolution ended, he went to Chicago to study art. In 1929, Alférez came to New Orleans on his way to the Yucatan, and he ended up making the city his home, living and working in New Orleans until his death in 1999.

The exhbition on view at the Ogden contains a wide swath of the artist's sculpture in bronze, plaster, wood and terra cotta, and also includes a selection of works on paper. On the streets of New Orleans, there's a supplement to that collection that the art curious can see without even entering the museum. Best of all, it will live on long past the exhibition's April 2 closing.

As an artist in the city during the days if the WPA’s public works projects, Alférez created numerous sculptures around the city, including the 1937 sculpture "Fountain of the Four Winds" created for the New Orleans Lakefront Airport in 1937, and many works throughout City Park’s Botanical Garden, which Alférez helped design in 1936.

Inspired by the Ogden’s exhibition, NoDef took advantage of a recent spring-like January day and visited some of Alférez other works throughout the city, all of which had been right under our noses without us ever noticing.

(click to enlarge)

In a triangle-shaped park on Magazine Street, just past Jackson Avenue, stands a sculpture of the New Orleans educator Sophie B. Wright that Alférez created in 1988. Wright, born in 1866, started free schools for the city’s poor and was active in the prison reform movement. The small park dedicated to her honor is a sort of dive bar of green spaces, situated roughly between The Saint and the Half Moon Bar, but the statue of Wright watches over it with a stern teacher’s gaze and book in hand.

Two more sculptures from 1988 are positioned outside the First Bank & Trust Tower on Poydras Street, near Walk-On’s sports bar in the CBD. To the left of the entrance to the tower is “David,” feet apart, sling-shot cocked, and looking upward at the Goliaths of New Orleans’ skyline. To the right is “The Lute Player,” ankles crossed, but knees spread wide to accommodate the body of his instrument. The plaque on the back of “David”appears to be held in place with Scotch tape, but otherwise these two pieces bring a little cultural warmth to this button-up block in the business district.

Just off Canal Street, in the neutral ground between the recently renovated Joy Theatre and the still-in-need-of-renovation State Palace Theatre, stands Marine Molly. According to wall text at the Ogden exhibition, curator Bradley Sumrall explains that this sculpture, dedicated in 1943, was executed as a show of support for the country’s Armed Services after Alférez tried unsuccessfully to join the U.S. Marines during World War II.

Finally, nestled in a flower bed at the courtyard of Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop on Bourbon Street, is “Adam and Eve,” the couple sharing an embrace among discarded maraschino cherries and cocktail straws. In Thomas K. Griffin’s Pelican Guide to New Orleans, the author that says that Alférez was a friend of Lafitte’s original owner, Tom Caplinger, and the sculpture was a gift from the artist, installed after Caplinger bought the bar in 1944.

While plenty of other works by Alférez are on view throughout New Orleans, these particular pieces are easily accessible to anyone moving around the city, and they offer a glimpse of the artist highlighted in the Ogden’s exhibition. Though Mexican by birth, Alférez lived here for seven decades, and his mark on New Orleans is indelible.

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Contributors:

Arielle Schecter, Laura Cayouette, Laine Kaplan-Levenson, Tristan Bennett, Rachel Dainer-Best, Christopher Herbeck, Kermit M. Mudgeley, Stella Kowalski, Huey P. Long, Hallie Gerard, Mack Walters, Paul McRambles, Erik Carter, Christina LeBlanc, Michael Cohn-Geltner, Jocelyn Buckley, Dave Rosenberg, Tanya Gulliver, Alexander J. Hancock

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Defender Picks

MERCREDI

February 22nd

JEUDI

February 23rd

VENDREDI

February 24th

SAMEDI

February 25th

DIMANCHE

February 26th

LUNDI

February 27th

MARDI

February 28th

MERCREDI

February 29th

After Enrique

Now on View at Ogden Museum, the Work of Enrique Alférez is a Permanent Exhibition in New Orleans' Public Spaces

Post new comment

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ADVERTISEwith NOLA Defender

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