Jim Richard: Make Yourself At Home on view in NOMA’s Great Hall October 5, 2012 – February 24, 2013

(New Orleans, LA) – This fall the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) presents a solo exhibition of paintings by renowned New Orleans artist Jim Richard. Jim Richard: Make Yourself At Home will be the artist’s first solo show at NOMA since 1978.

Twelve paintings on view in the Great Hall showcase a large range of the artist’s work covering the last twenty years of his career. Make Yourself At Home also includes a number of paintings that have never been shown to the public before. Richard is best known for his paintings of modernist works of art in crowded, decorated home interiors. In these domestic scenes, which he has been producing since 1977, works of art compete against loud décor.

“Jim Richard is a master at mixing ‘the high’ with ‘the low.’ In his paintings fine art commingles with overpowering wallpaper, gaudy lampshades, and tchotchkes,” said Miranda Lash, curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. “Part of Richard’s agenda is to poke fun at the lofty aspirations of modernism and modernist artworks, which often end up in private homes, where they exist amidst other high-end possessions. At the same time, Richard’s care in ‘curating’ these rooms with his beloved elements of kitsch, makes a compelling argument for the unexpected visual and emotional staying power of things often associated with ‘bad’ taste.”

Richard has a long history of exhibiting at NOMA. His work has been included in ten exhibitions over the past two decades, including five iterations of the juried New Orleans Triennial; more than any other artist in its history. A professor of painting at the University of New Orleans (UNO) for the past thirty-six years, Richard played a pivotal role in maintaining the strength of the Fine Arts program. Through UNO Richard influenced a generation of students, including painters Wayne Gonzales and Peter Halley, and sculptor Lucky DeBellevue.

Born 1943 in Port Arthur, Texas, Richard obtained a degree in commercial art from Lamar State College of Technology in Beaumont, Texas in 1965. Richard first experimented with painting in an abstract expressionist style. He pursued his M.F.A. at the University of Colorado and during the late 1960s gravitated towards a Pop sensibility, particularly admiring the playful irreverence of the Chicago Hairy Who artists and the California Funk movement, having studied under visiting professor William Wiley. Around this time Richard began collecting clippings of home interiors and backyards, unknowingly saving materials that would later become sources of artistic inspiration.

Jim Richard: Make Yourself at Home will be on view in the Great Hall from October 5, 2012 through February 24, 2013.

Exhibition Events
Friday, October 5 at 6 p.m.: Artist Lecture in NOMA’s Stern Auditorium
Friday, January 18 at 6 p.m.: Linda Yablonsky, critic for Artforum and New York Times Magazine will give a lecture on the work of Jim Richard in NOMA’s Stern Auditorium

Exhibition Sponsors
This exhibition is made possible thanks to generous support from Charles L. Whited, Jr and Post/Medium: Online Platform for Artists, www.postmedium.org

NOMA Admission
Wednesdays are FREE for all museum visitors. Adults, $10; Seniors (65 and up) and Students, $8; Children 7-17, $6; Children 6 and under, free.