Robert W. Tebbs: The Louisiana Plantation Photographs

December 5, 2011 – November 2012
Opening: Monday, December 5, 5:30-8:30pm

The Presbytere, Louisiana State Museum
751 Chartres St.
New Orleans, LA 70116
504-568-6968
Hours: Tue-Sun 10am-4:30pm
Museum admission: $6

Robert W. Tebbs produced the first photographic survey of Louisiana’s plantations in 1926, with the guidance of Richard Koch, New Orleans preservation architect. A precise documentarian, Tebbs also reveals a poetic sensibility in the plantation photos: a frequent emphasis on aspects of decay, neglect, incompleteness, and loss lends a wistful aura compounded by the fact that many of the homes no longer exist.

Louisiana in the mid-1920s moved from an economy beyond slave-based agriculture, toward mechanization, and on the brink of social and political reforms. Tebbs’s Louisiana plantation photographs capture a literal and cultural past, reflecting a new national awareness of historic preservation and presenting plantations to us anew. The exhibition features 60 of Tebbs’s most striking photographs, and will be on view in the 2nd Floor Special Exhibition Gallery through Nov. 2012.

On Monday, December 5th, the Friends of the Cabildo, the Louisiana Landmarks Society and the Preservation Resource Center join with the Louisiana State Museum to celebrate the opening of Louisiana Plantation Photographs by Robert Tebbs. December 5th also marks the release of the book Robert W. Tebbs, Photographer to Architects: Louisiana Plantations in 1926, written by LSM visual arts curator Dr. Richard Anthony Lewis. The Louisiana State University Press published the 165-page hardcover catalogue, with foreword by Robert J. Cangelosi, Jr., President of Koch and Wilson, APC. Lewis and Cangelosi will offer remarks and sign copies of the book.

Open to the public. Complimentary refreshments will be served.

The Presbytere, a National Historic Landmark building, is located on Jackson Square.