Exhibition Dates: December 5 – 26, 1998
Location: 432 Julia Street, New Orleans, LA 70130
Opening Reception: Saturday, December 5, 6– 8 pm
Gallery Hours: Monday – Saturday 10:00 am – 5:00 pm

Clyde Connell’s extraordinary life as an artist ended last May when she died at the age of 96. Clyde Connell has left a body of work which unquestionably places her among the greatest Louisiana artists of the 20th century. Her national reputation already established continues to grow.

This exhibition will bring together works completed in the last years of Clyde Connell’s life together with earlier paintings and sculptures already held in private collections. The artist created her work in a remote idyllic setting on Lake Bistineau south of Shreveport. Clyde Connell incorporated into her paintings and sculpture a variety of indigenous materials from the Louisiana landscape. Her abstract sculptures were regularly made of cypress wood, clay and farm related pieces of metal. Her sculptures are evocative of ritualistic totems and primitive votive objects. In her paintings Clyde Connell frequently employed primitive markings and pictographs which are associated with talismanic shapes. Clyde’s mystical connection with the spirit of the people who at one time occupied the Northern Louisiana land area where she lived for her entire life is apparent. The ancient art and culture from the settings where she lived mysteriously penetrate her quite contemporary work.

Clyde Connell was the recipient of numerous awards including the National Award in the Visual Arts, and an Honor Award from the National Women’s Caucus for Art. She exhibited extensively throughout the United Sates and was included in “Crossing the Threshold”, a traveling exhibition of leading women figures in Contemporary Art. Her work is included in several prestigious collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New Orleans Museum of Art.

For further information please contact 504.522.1999 or visit the gallery web site: www.arthurrogergallery.com.