In March of 1986, the Arthur Roger Gallery presented Works from Emmerich Gallery, an exhibition organized by Nathan Kolodner, the director of the André Emmerich Gallery at the time. Drawn from the inventory of the influential gallery, the exhibition assembled more than thirty works by artists whose contributions helped define the trajectory of twentieth-century abstraction and contemporary art.

The presentation included paintings, drawings, collages, monotypes, and sculpture by an exceptional roster of artists, among them Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Francis, Hans Hofmann, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Lawrence Poons, Anthony Caro, Al Held, Burgoyne Diller, Alexander Liberman, John Graham, and David Hockney. Together, these works traced a broad history of modernism, from early geometric abstraction and Abstract Expressionism to the expansive color, scale, and formal experimentation that characterized postwar American painting.

Highlights included works by Frankenthaler, whose pioneering stain paintings transformed the language of Color Field painting; Sam Francis’s luminous abstractions; important paintings and works on paper by Hans Hofmann, a central figure in the development of Abstract Expressionism; and examples by Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, and Lawrence Poons, artists closely associated with the Washington Color School and the evolution of post-painterly abstraction. The exhibition also featured sculptural and mixed-media works by Anthony Caro and Alexander Liberman, alongside photographic collages and drawings by David Hockney.

By bringing these artists together in New Orleans, Works from Emmerich Gallery reflected the Arthur Roger Gallery’s early commitment to presenting museum-caliber contemporary art and introducing regional audiences to internationally recognized artists whose work shaped the course of modern and contemporary art.