Self-taught artists, jazz photos shine at new Ogden exhibits | Entertainment/Life

Decades ago, before moving to New Orleans, Michael Burke was furnishing a Catskills house with “the country eclectic look” by hunting for trinkets and gadgets to display. But what started as a home project is now a new exhibit at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

“Burke’s Delight” celebrates its namesake’s recent donation to the Ogden of more than 80 works from the American South by more than 50 artists, and represents a quest of 45 years (eventually joined by wife Stacey) of “snooping around” that brought the collectors to flea markets, galleries, auctions and into artists’ personal spaces. The exhibit contains works by such notables of the genre as Bill Traylor, Sam Doyle and Nellie Mae Rowe as well as lesser-known artists. 

He was first inspired by a 2016 exhibit at the New Orleans Museum of Art called “Unfiltered Visions: 20th Century Self-Taught American Art.” It “triggered in my brain, like wow, these guys, these people, don’t have any monetary interest in this,” said Burke, by trade a lighting technician for film and television, including many seasons of the “Law & Order” suite of shows.

“They felt the urge to create out of simple materials with no education in the process. They just made things.”

The result, over many years, was a stellar personal collection of “self-taught” or “outsider” art. “‘Vernacular’ seems to be the educational term, but if I tell some friends of mine that I have some ‘vernacular’ art, they’re going to think it’s like something from the biology lab,” Burke said.

 “Burke’s Delight: The Stacey and Michael Burke Collection” is on view through Jan. 10, 2027. 

The collecting quest

As important as the collecting quest was how the Burkes collected personal experiences with some of the artists, said Bradley Sumrall, Ogden’s curator of the collection. 

“Michael Burke’s delight was not only buying the objects, acquiring the objects, but it was living with the objects,” Sumrall said. “It was getting to know the makers of those objects. And now it’s getting to see the world enjoy and engage with these objects.”

Burke said it’s very different than just going to a gallery. “When you go on a trip and you wind up meeting somebody, either by surprise or by appointment, you make a connection,” he said. “And it becomes a little bit more real to me and not necessarily buying pieces for investment.” 

A sub-exhibit collects a selection of “face jugs,” ceramic vessels rooted in centuries of history, that the Burkes have also donated to the Ogden.

“For an institution that’s known for its collection of vernacular art, Michael’s collection filled out some holes that we had in it,” Sumrall said. “You know, some missing artists and some missing elements of artists’ practice.”

The jazz giants

Another Burke-enabled exhibit, “Herman Leonard: Images of Jazz,” is on view through July 12, 2026. Leonard, who called New Orleans home in the 1990s and early 2000s, captured smoky, heroic photographic portraits of jazz greats made primarily in the middle years of the last century.

His portraits of Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and others, come from a portfolio the photographer produced during his New Orleans years. Earlier and later, he spent other years in Ottawa, New York City, Paris, Ibiza and Los Angeles.

Burke came to know Leonard then and acquired a copy of the portfolio, which holds 30 prints and is one of only 30 produced.

It was while visiting Burke’s home to collaborate on the “Burke’s Delight” exhibit that Sumrall, who’d had a poster of Leonard’s Dexter Gordon portrait in his first post-collegiate apartment, spied the portfolio.

“I was sitting in his living room, and we were going over some notes of what we had looked at that day and what might be available for donation,” Sumrall said. “And I glanced over on the floor, and against the wall there was Herman Leonard’s portfolio. (Burke) was like, ‘Yeah, you want it?’”

“Now they’re all going to be framed,” Burke said. “They’ll all be up, and everybody can see them and enjoy them.”

Museum calendar 

• March 1 is the final day to see the exhibit “Nicolas Floc’h: Fleuves-Océan, Mississippi Watershed” at the New Orleans Museum of Art. noma.org.
• At 5:30 p.m. Thursday (March 5), The Newcomb Art Museum at Tulane will host a reception for its spring exhibitions, “The Moss Mystique: Southern Women and Newcomb Pottery” and “Making Her Mark.”  newcombartmuseum.tulane.edu.
• The exhibition “Gálvez and Louisiana’s Role in the American Revolution” opens March 8 at the Cabildo. More: louisianastatemuseums.org.
• From 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. March 11, the Historic New Orleans Collection will offer an after-hours event themed to its exhibition “A Vanishing Bounty: Louisiana’s Coastal Environment and Culture.”  hnoc.org.
• Author Rick Atkinson will present a free lecture, “The Two Greatest Generations: From the American Revolution to World War II,” at 5:30 p.m. March 12 at the National WWII Museum. A 4:30 p.m. reception will precede the lecture, which will be offered in-person and online. nationalww2museum.org.
• The National WWII Museum will host the symposium “Patton: Man of War” on March 13-14. It will take place in-person and stream for free online. nationalww2museum.org.