Author: David

A heavy cruiser, the USS New Orleans participated in nearly every major World War II battle in the Pacific. As demonstrated in the new changing exhibition “Come Back Fighting: USS New Orleans at War” at the National WWII Museum, her combat history tells just part of the story. Christened in 1933 at Brooklyn Navy Yard Read more

During a recent family visit to Phoenix, I stopped by the Phoenix Art Museum to see “Ed Mell: In the Studio.” Mell, who died in 2024, was appropriately renowned for vibrant, angular landscapes of desert mesas, canyons, flowers, and awesome, abstract skies. I had a personal, distant connection to the exhibit’s theme, which is a Read more

“American Revolution: The Augmented Exhibition” has opened at the Historic New Orleans Collection and will remain on view through January 17, 2027. From the French technology company Histovery, the exhibition uses hand-held tablet computers to open up 360-degree views of the sites, events, and historical figures who fought for America’s independence 250 years ago.  The Read more

Told through text, multimedia screens, re-created period garments, old and newly rendered artwork, and historical objects such as maps, documents and guns, the new Cabildo exhibit “Gálvez and Louisiana in the American Revolution,” is intended to offer a comprehensive overview of our regional piece of the larger story. “I do feel strongly that there’s a Read more

Decades ago, Michael Burke and a companion were furnishing a Catskills house with “the country eclectic look … snooping around for small trinkets and gadgets and stuff for display purposes,” he said. “It would be some ‘tramp’ art, some popsicle-stick pieces, the safety pin  baskets, the tin-can art.” A 2016 exhibit at the New Orleans Read more

The National WWII Museum has announced via social media that the “D-Day Invasion of Normandy” exhibit will close for a major overhaul on February 24. This is significant to the museum and its visitors because the exhibit was the inaugural gallery when the D-Day Museum first opened in 2000, and remained an important link to Read more

The Presbytere’s new exhibit “Origins of New Orleans Black Carnival Society: The Story of the Illinois Clubs” will put the important social, cultural – and yes, Carnival – history it tells in front of a lot of tourists. But locals will benefit from the exhibit’s narrative as well. “Our approach was, we know that many Read more

The objects, images and garments on view in the exhibition “Cut from a Different Cloth: Fashion Selections from Tulane Special Collections” track the importance of apparel through many levels of the New Orleans community, from grand society dames and Carnival royalty to Black Masking Indians, college students and titans of world couture. “New Orleans is Read more

Romance isn’t quite the right word, but the romantic narrative is that jazz was born in Storyville, the French Quarter-adjacent designated sector for sin from 1897 to 1917. In the New Orleans Jazz Museum exhibit “The District: Music and Musicians in Storyville,” that narrative is corrected. “It was happening in Storyville as we know it, Read more

Gowns, gown designs rendered in watercolor and ephemera like ball invitations and favors add sparkle to the stories of the spotlighted individuals in the Presbytere exhibit “Pioneers of Women’s Carnival.” The marquee object in a display dedicated to parade throws doubles down on sparkle. Its origin was Nicola Wolf’s initiative for her first Krewe of Read more