New Orleans art schools' calendars

New Orleans art schools' calendars (LaRC Manuscripts Collection 522) is a grouping of locally-produced calendars featuring years between 1902 and 1938.   It contains original color or monochrome linoleum-block or wood-block prints and printed reproductions designed by various artists and published through art schools in New Orleans. These were compiled into annual calendars, mostly bound with string, and produced through the Newcomb College Art Department, and art classes of the Isidore Newman School, in New Orleans.  With art and music education being presently reduced in the primary and secondary schools, this collection is evidence of a slower-paced era when creativity and patience were valued.

Many of the designs incorporate carved-in students' initials; the collection also includes designs by Mary Frances Baker and Rosalie Urquhart. Subjects depicted in the calendars include New Orleans buildings, bridges, boats, natural scenes, the Shushan Airport, and Mayan masks and figurines. One of the calendars features famous women of New Orleans, and includes portraits of Baroness Pontalba, Margaret Haughery, Sophie B. Wright, Grace King, and Dorothy Dix, plus images of nuns, an African-American woman, and a Mardi Gras queen.

Other similar prints and calendars are cataloged separately in the Louisiana Collection (LACOLL), which is part of the Louisiana Research Collection.

Captions:  top: a printed cover of A New Orleans calendar, 1905, designed by Rosalie Urquhart (Newcomb College), located in 522-1-2;  bottom, an original 1937 print featuring an unnamed African-American woman (art class, Newman School ... "This calendar designed and cut by art class of Newman School, New Orleans, Louisiana"), located in 522-1-13.    Images of items in the Louisiana Research Collection may not be re-published without permission.

Posted by Susanna Powers