FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:
Margaux Krane
504.658.4106
mkrane@noma.org

NEW ORLEANS, LA - Works celebrating the life-spanning accomplishments of printmaker, war veteran, and professor Jim Steg will be on view at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) from April 7 - October 8, 2017 in Jim Steg: New Work. Steg was the most influential printmaker to be based in New Orleans in the twentieth century. Throughout his life, Steg used almost every known printmaking method of his time, and even pioneered several of his own. Etchings, woodcuts, drawings, photo-resist etchings, Xerox toner works, and many other works that have never before been on public display are included in Jim Steg: New Work, the artist's first retrospective exhibition. Restlessly inventive, NOMA's exhibition reveals Steg as an artist at the forefront of several major twentieth-century movements and one of the nation's most innovative printmakers.

"Jim Steg was a true trailblazer. He completely embodied his role as a gifted artist and innovator," said Susan Taylor, NOMA Director. "We are honored to showcase some of his own significant accomplishments at NOMA."

Among many of the notable chapters in his story, Steg served in the World War II division now known as the Ghost Army, which was responsible for deceiving the armies of the Third Reich by faking troop movements using inflatable tanks and other theatrical props and equipment. The Ghost Army was comprised of a number of soldiers with artistic or theatrical backgrounds, including artist Ellsworth Kelly and fashion designer Bill Blass. During the war, Steg produced dozens of graphite or watercolor portraits of civilians, soldiers, or refugees that he encountered along the way. It is likely that the refugees he depicted did not live to see the war's end, making these drawings a haunting, but lasting, legacy. These works, and others, will be on display at NOMA, along with a full-scale replica of an inflatable tank, much like the tanks employed by The Ghost Army.

"Jim Steg's work in almost any period is very accomplished and was historically recognized as such," said Russell Lord, Freeman Family Curator of Photographs, Prints, and Drawings at NOMA. "He was selected for the prestigious Carnegie International more than once, and he even received a Fulbright grant to lecture in Pakistan in 1959. Our goal is to remind contemporary audiences of his past achievements while at the same time introducing a number of neverbefore-seen works."

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About NOMA and the Besthoff Sculpture Garden
The New Orleans Museum of Art, founded in 1910 by Isaac Delgado, houses nearly 40,000 art objects encompassing 5,000 years of world art. Works from the permanent collection, along with continuously changing special exhibitions, are on view in the museum's 46 galleries Fridays from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The adjoining Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden features work by over 60 artists, including several of the 20th century's master sculptors. The Sculpture Garden is open seven days a week: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The New Orleans Museum of Art and the Besthoff Sculpture Garden are fully accessible to handicapped visitors and wheelchairs are available from the front desk. For more information about NOMA, call (504) 658-4100 or visit www.noma.org. Wednesdays are free admission days for Louisiana residents, courtesy of The Helis Foundation. (May not include special exhibitions.) Teenagers (ages 13-19) receive free admission every day through the end of the year, courtesy of The Helis Foundation.