Press & Media

“Gallery owner Arthur Roger donates his extensive personal art collection to NOMA,” The Times-Picayune

On June 1, Arthur Roger’s personal collection of paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs and mixed media pieces will be taken off his walls, packed away and carted over to the New Orleans Museum of Art. He recently donated more than 80 pieces to the museum, including works by national and regional artists such as Luis Cruz Azaceta, Willie Birch, Douglas Bourgeois, Robert Colescott, George Dureau, Robert Gordy, Deborah Kass, Catherine Opie, Robert Polidori, Holton Rower and John Waters, among others.

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“Tribute to late sculptor John Scott is concert highlight,” The Advocate

Scott’s large-scale sculpture graces many public places in New Orleans. His “Spiritgate,” for instance, stands at the entrance of the New Orleans Museum of Art. In 2005, the museum mounted a career retrospective of Scott’s work, art that reflects the city’s African-American, Caribbean and Creole heritage. “John Scott is a really big name here,” said Ko, Faubourg Quartet member and chair of NOCCA’s classical instrument department. “His sculpture is everywhere. And the artists we’re presenting in ‘The Art of Music,’ they were all influenced by John Scott.”

Like Ko, Scott saw the connection between various arts disciplines.

“He always talked about the relationship between music and art,” she said. “He believed art and music are not two different genres, but actually one thing. We are using our notes and they are using their pictures to make art.”

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“‘Optical jazz’ – Artist John T. Scott’s work on display at LASM,” The Advocate

His mother told him to pass it on. And he did. He passed it on to his students who became teachers, and they passed it on to their students. He passed it on to other artists, who passed it on to their colleagues. And they’ve gathered in the Louisiana Art & Science Museum on this particular night to share memories of John T. Scott, a friend and mentor who died in 2005 in Houston. Yet it seemed as if somehow he’s still in the world, even walking with them through the Louisiana Art & Science Museum’s main galleries as Mora Beauchamp-Byrd guided them through Rhythm & Improvisation: John T. Scott & His Enduring Legacy. That’s the title of the museum’s exhibit of Scott’s work shaped by African, Caribbean and New Orleans musical traditions. The work has been described as “optical jazz” or “visual blues.” The show runs through Sunday, July 14.

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“Homage to John Scott,” Art e-Walk

With John T. Scott’s preferred jazz tunes playing in the background, the Louisiana Art and Science Museum downtown Baton Rouge invites the visitor to look at the artist and his colleagues’ works during the exhibition Rhythm and Improvisation: John T. Scott and his Enduring Legacy.

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“John T. Scott: The Times-Picayune covers 175 years of New Orleans history,” The Times-Picayune

Renowned artist John T. Scott’s colorful kinetic sculpture captured the New Orleans spirit. In 1992, Xavier University art professor Scott, who lived from 1940 to 2007, was awarded a $315,000 John D. MacArthur Fellowship, popularly known as a genius grant. It was a career-capping acknowledgement of Scott’s devotion to artistic experimentation and education that made him the city’s most influential modernist. Large-scale sculptures by Scott can be found in DeSaix Circle, City Park and at the New Orleans Museum of Art.

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“Nawlins Native Son- John T. Scott,” Black Art in America

In March 2010, an exhibit of works by artist John Scott opened at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles. Featured in the exhibit, “Our Love of John Scott,” are the paintings, sculptures, and woodblocks created by this beloved artist who died September 1, 2007 in Houston after two double lung transplants and a long struggle with pulmonary fibrosis.

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Yesterday’s Doorway: John Scott’s Iconographic Portraits of New Orleans

by Mora J. Beauchamp Byrd for John Scott Retrospective at the Masur Museum of Art in Monroe, Louisiana Mora J. Beauchamp Byrd Dr. Mora J. Beauchamp-Byrd is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke University. An art historian, curator, and arts administrator, she has most recently… 

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“John T. Scott: A New Orleans Artist 1940-2007”, Style Century Magazine

JOHN T. SCOTT was far more than an infinitely creative mind – he was educator, mentor and guiding spirit to New Orleans’s artistic community. Two-thousand-five was a pivotal year for Scott. Works from every stage of his career appeared in a major retrospective, Circle Dance: The Art of John T. Scott, which opened in May of that year at the New Orleans Museum of Art.

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“New Orleans Native Sculptor John T. Scott Dies”, NPR

All Things Considered, September 4, 2007 · John T. Scott was born in Gentilly and raised in the Lower Ninth Ward. He used to say he tried to capture the musicality of New Orleans in the colors and rhythms of his sculptures. He died Saturday at the age of 67.

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