“Creole New Orleans, Honey!” The Art of Andrew LaMar Hopkins

Mobile native and long-time New Orleans resident Andrew LaMar Hopkins is a self-taught artist who brings nineteenth-century Creole culture in New Orleans to life with his stunningly detailed and colorful paintings. An antiquarian, collector, and enthusiast of southern Creole history, Hopkins draws inspiration directly from his Creole heritage and in-depth knowledge of antiques, evident in his elegantly painted scenes that showcase the period’s lavish architecture and interior styles.

The subjects of Hopkins’s paintings are often known historical figures of nineteenth-century New Orleans, such as Marie Laveau, the Baroness de Pontalba, and John James Audubon, but they also include invented period characters. His imagined scenes reflect the complexities of race, gender, and class identities during the period. He paints each piece with minute attention to detail, down to the fabric crease in a figure’s tignon, the inlay of a Louisiana armoire, the mahogany figuring of an Empire pier table, and the finely painted veining of a marble tile floor.

Hopkins’s work has attracted considerable attention over the past few years. He has been profiled by the New York Times and Wall Street Journal and had his work featured in numerous major publications and exhibitions. Most recently, he was profiled by John Berendt, acclaimed author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, for the one hundredth anniversary issue of The Magazine Antiques, which featured one of Hopkins’s paintings on the cover.

The Louisiana State Museum is honored to present the first solo museum exhibition of paintings by Andrew LaMar Hopkins. Hopkins’s passion for history and decorative arts inspired him to volunteer at the Louisiana State Museum during his early adulthood. Works in the museum’s collection, including paintings by Jacques Amans and Jean Joseph Vaudechamp, rare Louisiana decorative arts and furniture, and important historic landmarks such as the lower Pontalba Building shaped Hopkins’s painting style and subject matter. This exhibition will feature Hopkins’s vibrant paintings alongside some of the most important objects in the museum’s permanent collection—objects that directly inspired Hopkins to create his vivid canvases of Creole society.