May 17, 2005	PRESS RELEASE
Elemore Morgan Jr.
Exhibition Dates:	June 4 – July 23, 2005
Location:	432 Julia Street, New Orleans, LA 70130
Opening Reception:	Saturday, June 4, 6– 8 pm
Gallery Hours:	Monday – Saturday 10:00 am – 5:00 pm
The Arthur Roger Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of recent work by contemporary Louisiana landscape painter Elemore Morgan Jr. New work for the exhibition will include Morgan’s signature scenes of vibrant Louisiana landscapes rendered in acrylic on Masonite panels, gouache on paper and mixed media drawings on paper. The exhibition will be on view from June 4 – July 23, 2005 in the front gallery of the Arthur Roger Gallery at 432 Julia Street. The artist will be present at the exhibition’s opening reception hosted by the gallery on Saturday, June 4th from 6 to 8pm. Widely recognized as the leading contemporary Louisiana landscape painter, Elemore Morgan Jr resides in Vermilion Parish in the heart of the rice-growing region of Southwest Louisiana. A number of paintings in this exhibition offer a view from the porch of the artist’s studio in the countryside, as well as views of the Mississippi River executed in his distinctive luminous, gestural style. In his treatment of color and light Elemore Morgan Jr.’s work is often likened to the Impressionists and the Fauves of the 19th and early 20th century. As he works outdoors and on location, the intense light, lush hues and thick atmosphere of the artist’s natural environment are all reflected in his rural and urban landscapes. “New Orleans is like Venice in that the moist atmosphere causes a whole way of painting,” says Morgan in a 2004 interview with writer Jason Berry. “Titian, Veronese, all those guys had to be affected by the soft, diffuse light. Their colors shimmer and radiate. Where I live on the prairie, that moist air triggers a similar response in what I see in the sky.” Growing up on a family farm near Baton Rouge, Elemore Morgan Jr. believes that his habit of painting outdoors in direct contact with nature grew out of his early life experiences with nature on his family’s land. Morgan acknowledges that his father, celebrated Louisiana photographer Elemore Morgan Sr., was a strong influence in his artistic development. The senior Morgan, also captured by the landscape’s grandeur, documented the life and landscape of his native Louisiana in dramatic black and white photographs from the 1930s through the 1960s. A major joint retrospective of the work of Elemore Morgan Jr. and his father is planned for the fall of 2005 at The Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans. Elemore Morgan Jr. studied art under the tutelage of Caroline Durieux, Ralston Crawford and David Le Doux at Louisiana State University where he received a B.A. in fine art in 1952. After two years of active duty in the United States Air Force during the Korean War, he earned a C.F.A. (accepted as the equivalent to the American M.F.A.) with the help of the GI Bill from the Ruskin School of Fine Arts, University of Oxford, England. In 1998 Morgan retired from his position as Professor of Visual Arts at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette where he taught for 32 years. In 1999, a major retrospective exhibition of Elemore Morgan Jr.'s work was presented at the University Art Museum, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, the Louisiana Arts and Science Center in Baton Rouge, and the Alexandria Museum of Art, Alexandria, LA. His work is included in the collections of the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Morris Museum of Art, The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, as well as many other distinguished public and private collections. For further information please contact the gallery at 504.522.1999 or visit the gallery web site: www.arthurrogergallery.com.

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