French Quarter Life
People and Places in the Vieux Carré
Artistic impressions of New Orleans’s most iconic neighborhood
520 Royal Street
Seignouret-Brulatour Building
3rd Floor
Included with free museum admission
“Don’t you just love these long rainy afternoons in New Orleans when an hour isn’t just an hour—but a little piece of eternity dropped into your hands—and who knows what to do with it?”
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire
For more than 150 years, artists from around the world have worked to capture and share their impressions of New Orleans’s most iconic and historic neighborhood. This exhibition gathers paintings from the museum’s permanent collection, including gifts from Louisiana art collector Laura Simon Nelson. From the bustle of the French Market to the beauty of Jackson Square, these artworks explore the streets, buildings, and people of the French Quarter through time and a variety of techniques.
Explore the Virtual Exhibition
Shop the French Quarter Life Collection
Shop our curated selection of art prints from the French Quarter Life exhibition, now available at the Shop at the Collection.
Related Stories
“One of the Great Literary Curiosities” of French Quarter Bohemia Turns 100
With a foreword by William Faulkner and clever portrait drawings, Sherwood Anderson and Other Famous Creoles is an offbeat who’s-who of 1920s New Orleans.
Richard Simmons, New Orleans’s Hometown Hero
How a native son who grew up in the French Quarter sweated his way into the spotlight
Related Collection Highlights
Pops Whitesell Photographs
The artist was an important figure in the French Quarter Renaissance, an effort by artists, authors, and architects to preserve and reinvigorate life in the historic neighborhood.
Mario Dipietrantonio Collection
In the early 1980s a small group of friends came together at the Golden Lantern to form a community-minded drag group known as the Demented Women.
Related Books
Garden Legacy
by Mary Louise Mossy Christovich and Roulhac Bunkley Toledano
with a foreword by S. Frederick Starr
Creole World: Photographs of New Orleans and the Latin Caribbean Sphere
by Richard Sexton
with essays by Jay D. Edwards and John H. Lawrence
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