Welcome to your library!
FELIX J. DREYFOUS LIBRARY MISSION STATEMENT
The library is a resource center for the museum’s community. The Felix J. Dreyfous library of the New Orleans Museum of Art aims to support the museum’s mission to “inspire the love of art; to collect, preserve, exhibit and present excellence in the visual arts; to educate, challenge and engage a diverse public.” The library achieves this by acquiring and making available appropriate collections of print and electronic resources including exhibition and artist archives.
SERVICES AND PROGRAMS
The library offers the following:
Over 20,000 books and 70 journal subscriptions about art and art related topics, Wi-fi, electrical plug-ins for laptops, a computer work station, interlibrary loans, on-line scholarly databases, on-line art databases.
Reference service is provided by full time librarian with a Masters in Library and Information Science. To contact email scork@noma.org
The library also offers the NOMA Book Club programs, including discussion groups (all the books are related to art), author events, field trips, and curatorial programs.
MEMORIAL AND HONOR BOOKS:
Did you know that you can honor a loved one, or a significant event with a book plate in a book at the library? Call the librarian at 504-658-4117 or email to scork@noma.org to find out how.
RECOMMENDED SITES:
Art museums and art museum libraries
http://www.aaa.si.edu/ Archives of American Art Archives of American Art – “With over 16 million items in its continually growing collections, the Archives is the world’s largest and most widely used resource dedicated to collecting and preserving the papers and primary records of the visual arts in America.” (Archives of American Art website)
http://www.getty.edu/research/library/ Getty Research Insitute – Union List of Artist’s names that leads to biographical and family information, and bibliographies of artists.
http://sirismm.si.edu/siris/julquickstart.htm Smithsonian photography archives include portraits of American artists, and portraits by other categories
Art terms
http://www.artlex.com/ “definitions for more than 3,600 terms used in discussing art / visual culture, along with thousands of supporting images, pronunciation notes, great quotations and cross-references “ (Artlex.com website)
Art history
http://arthistoryresources.net/ARTHLinks.html Comprehenisve – gives access to information on types of art by era, country of origin, school, and movement.
http://www.infoplease.com/art.html Infoplease art page. Links to articles about many aspects of art history
Libraries and Library Organizations
http://catalog.loc.gov/ Library of Congress online catalogs. “14 million records representing books, serials, computer files, manuscripts, cartographic materials, music, sound recordings, and visual materials.” (LOC website)
http://www.worldcat.org/ World Cat “Finds items in libraries near you” (Worldcat website)
http://www.state.lib.la.us/ The State library of Louisiana’s home page. From this page you can search the catalogs of libraries across Louisiana, find out about jobs in Louisiana libraries and other services.
NEW AND NOTABLE
Tooth for an Eye: A Chorography of Violence in Orleans Parish by Deborah Luster. Twin Palms Publisher, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2011. ISBN 9781931885966
Follow this link to hear Luster discuss her work, and the images that appear in this book.
First of all, what does Chorography mean? Merriam-Webster tells us that it is “the art of describing or mapping a region or district (OR): a description or map of a region; also: the physical conformation and features of such a region” and Wikipedia notes that it “a specialization within geography, comprising the description through field observation of the particular traits of a given area.”
This book is a “field study.” Filled with images taken at the locations of murders it is “… a photographic archive documenting contemporary and historical homicide sites in the city of New Orleans and is, as well, an exploration of the empty, dizzying space at the core of violence.”
The book does not contain images of corpses. The photographs have been taken after the fact and show the locations of the violence, sometimes many years after the event. On the page opposite the photograph the name or names of the victims, and the street at which the homicide occurred are briefly documented.
To say that the work is poignant is to understate, or to be too glib in our reaction. We are given a glimpse into a world that was shattered by violence; we can imagine the horror and grief of the families that the violence impacted. We are also able to wonder about the impact of the location as the catalyst for the murder; what was it about those places that drew the protagonists and victims together? The format of the book (large round images against a stark white background) allows us a voyeuristic glimpse, as if through a porthole, into the heart of the tragedy.
The images that are at the heart of the book have been the subject of exhibitions, including one at the Jack Shainman Gallery, NYC, 2011. Follow this link to see the photographs as they appear when hung on walls rather than confined between the covers of a book.
Richard Diebenkorn: The Ocean Park Series curated by Sarah C. Bancroft. Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA and Prestel Publishing, New York. [2011].
This is a catalog of an exhibition at the Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, The Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC. The book is filled with color images of Diebenkorn’s work for this series, and essays about the artist.
Follow this link to an NPR discussion of the exhibition and Diebenkorn’s work:
Be sure to come to NOMA to see Diebenkorn’s 1958 painting Woman on Porch, on view in the contemporary galleries.
Damien Hirst has a retrospective at the Tate Modern, Damien Hirst on view through 9 September 2012. Follow this link to a walk-through of the exhibition with Hirst and This link takes you to a walk-through of his exhibition with Noel Fielding and Damien Hirst himself.
BIG JOAN AND LITTLE JOAN – Interview with Joan Mitchell
Joan Mitchell is the subject of the book that the NOMA Book Club has been reading in April. During our program with Miranda Lash, NOMA’s curator of Contemporary Art, Ms. Lash referred to “Big Joan and Little Joan”. This link leads to a brief interview where Joan Mitchell discusses this.
NEW ORLEANS MUSEUM OF ART BOOK CLUB
FELIX J. DREYFOUS LIBRARY
OCTOBER 2012 – SEPTEMBER 2013
To join the NOMA Book Club and to RSVP for meetings call Sheila Cork (Librarian) at 504-658-4117 or email at scork@noma.org.The Museum shop offers a 20% discount on NOMA Book Club items when you show your book club card.
All book club discussion groups and special programs start promptly at noon. Please come at 11:30 a.m. if you would like to eat a sack lunch and chat with friends first. NOMA provides soft drinks and water.
Don’t forget to RSVP for the meetings you will be attending.
Please click here to visit our Events section for a current list of upcoming meetings.
Check out these pictures from the January 2012 Field Trip to New Orleans Glassworks and Printmaking School, 727 Magazine Street, New Orleans, LA 70130. The photographs were taken by the staff at Glassworks.
