John Clemmer: A Legacy in Art

Over his eight-decade career, John Clemmer (1921-2014) captivated curators, collectors, and casual art lovers alike with his paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures. Clemmer was active in a community of artists-centered on the Arts and Crafts Club of New Orleans-whose work came to define Louisiana modernism. John Clemmer: A Legacy in Art marks the occasion of the artist’s centennial with a survey of his life, work, and enduring influence.

An unassuming and generously spirited man, John Clemmer was a mentor to generations of New Orleans artists. During his time at the Arts and Crafts Club, his tenure on the faculty of the Tulane School of Architecture, and his chairmanship of the Newcomb Department of Art, he arranged exhibitions in the galleries to showcase the work of students, faculty, and emerging as well as established artists. Clemmer was the impetus behind the Smithsonian’s 1985-87 traveling exhibition of Newcomb pottery, An Enterprise for Southern Women, as well as the organizer of the Newcomb Centennial 1886-1986 exhibition held at the New Orleans Museum of Art in 1987.