NOMA Post Katrina Art Conservation Recovery Project HURRICANE KATRINA EMERGENCY GRANT

FAIN: PC-50014-06

New Orleans Museum of Art (New Orleans, LA 70179-0123)
E. John Bullard (Project Director: November 2005 to April 2007)

With a permanent collection of over 40,000 objects that survey the world's great cultures from antiquity to the present, the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) presents exhibitions and sponsors publications and education programs that include Jefferson's America and Napoleon's France; Raised to the Trade: Creole Building Arts of New Orleans; and Blue Winds Dancing: The Whitecloud Collection of Native American Art. In preparation for hurricane Katrina, NOMA disassembled some sculptures and prepared protective wrapping for imbedded art such as, Virlane Tower, by Kenneth Snelson, which nevertheless was heavily damaged. In NOMA's main climate controlled storage facility that features a thick basement slab which has never leaked, thousands of pieces were moved to higher shelves for extra security, but the storm's hydrostatic pressure forced groundwater up resulting in damage to rare 18th century Asian screen paintings and works by Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, and Andy Warhol and others. A preliminary assessment identified 2,000 items that are most threatened by exposure to standing water and high temperatures.