Self-taught photographer Clarence John Laughlin (1905-85) spent most of his career in and around New Orleans. Dubbed "Edgar Allan Poe with a camera," Laughlin and his haunting images capture -- like nothing before or since -- the weathered elegance and dreamy decadence of Louisianas buildings, streets, and cemeteries.Â After experimenting with photography in the early 1930s, Laughlin devoted himself to the medium in 1935 and had his first showing a year later. In 1948 his book on Louisiana's plantation architecture, Ghosts Along the Mississippi, vaulted him into the pantheon of great American photographers. He continued photographing actively until 1967, and lectured and wrote until his death in 1985. Over the course of his lengthy career, Laughlin produced more than 17,000 negatives and a large collection of writings on the art of photography. This stunning volume brings together 65 of Laughlin's characteristic images, both classic and unpublished -- an eerie gallery of French quarter facades and ironwork, funerary sculpture, Spanish moss, and other details that summon up Louisiana gothic. Accompanied by selections from Laughlin's various writings and letters, as well as essays by eight distinguished writersJon Kukla, John H. Lawrence, Andrei Codrescu, Ellen Gilchrist, Shirley Ann Grau, Jonathan Williams, Albert Belisle Davis, and John Wood --- Haunter of Ruins is the only book currently available on this incomparable American original. Haunter of Ruins was chosen as a winner in the General Trade Illustrated Book Category by Bookbuilders of Boston.

Haunter of Ruins: The Photography of Clarence John Laughlin

Arts & Photography

The Historic New Orleans Collection

Photography & Video

Little,Brown

Presenting a comparison of examples from New Orleans's three intermingling silver traditions French, American, and German Crescent City Silver features 130 pieces by 32 makers from the holdings of The Historic New Orleans Collection, the LSU Museum of Art, as well as several private collections. A 2007 reprint of the original 1980 exhibition catalogue for the groundbreaking exhibition Crescent City Silver: An Exhibition of Nineteenth-Century New Orleans Silver. The exhibition opened in April 1980 at The Historic New Orleans Collection and then in September 1980 traveled to the Anglo-American Art Museum at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA (today known as the LSU Museum of Art).

Crescent City Silver

History

Americas

Historic New Orleans Collection

A descriptive bibliography of books, pamphlets, and broadsides and other ephemera issued during the first 100 years of printing in New Orleans. Organized by years, the entries are arranged in a clear and easy-to-read format and provide information that was previously unavailable in a compiled form. 
 The search for New Orleans imprints included 85 librairies and historical societies, resulting in over 3,300 entries. The introduction, a history of printing in the city, discusses subject content in New Orleans publications, the rise of English-language printing, and the evolution of official printing.

Bibliography of New Orleans Imprints, 1764 - 1864

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Historic New Orleans Collections

Collector William Russells passion for jazz is the underlying rhythm throughout Jazz Scrapbook. The book offers cameo portraits of Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Bunk Johnson, Mahalia Jackson, Baby Dodds, Natty Dominque, and Fess Manettaa roll call of early jazz greats, all born in New Orleans. Nine essays and 66 rare period photographs give an intimate, backstage view of the jazz world documented by the William Russell Jazz Collection at The Historic New Orleans Collection.

Jazz Scrapbook: Bill Russell and Some Highly Musical Friends

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

From October 1, 2008, through February 20, 2009, The Historic New Orleans Collection presents an exhibition of the earliest-known paper photographs of New Orleans in The Collection's Williams Gallery at 533 Royal Street. A full-color catalogue accompanying the exhibition,A Closer Look: The Antebellum Photographs of Jay Dearborn Edwards, 1858 1861, features three dozen images of a thriving southern city on the brink of the Civil War. 
The exhibition catalogue focuses on the work of Jay Dearborn Edwards, a New Hampshire native who established a photography business on Royal Street around 1858 and captured an array of cityscapes. 
Some of [Edwards's] photographs show the construction of the United States Custom House in New Orleans, as well as public and private buildings around town, and the activity along the riverfront, said John H. Lawrence, co-curator and director of museum programs at THNOC. Those who know New Orleans will see a familiar city presented in an unfamiliar way. Places that resonate today with both locals and visitors such as Canal Street, the Mississippi riverfront, the Garden District take on a different aspect when viewed through the lens of the past. 
In addition to showcasing images of the city's developing residential neighborhoods, thriving business district, and changing trends in architecture, the catalogue also encourages visitors to take a closer look by pairing the photographs with items from The Collection's holdings. The pairings invite visitors to reflect on how New Orleans has changed and yet, in many ways, remained the same. 
A Closer Look uses Edwards's photographs of New Orleans as a springboard for looking at history and historical objects beyond the photographs themselves, Lawrence said. The series of pictures is compelling on its own as a glimpse of antebellum New Orleans, but because looking at photographs always seems to raise other questions, the curators have chosen additional items from The Collection's holdings to associate with each image. 
The arrangement of objects and images also illustrates society's evolving interest in photography, exploring how photographers' subjects have changed over time, what photography attempts to preserve, and how photographic technologies have advanced.

A Closer Look: The Antebellum Photographs of Jay Dearborn Edwards, 1858–1861

Individual Artists

Birds of a Feather offers an introduction to the art and history of an important Louisiana tradition. Part 1, "Early Working Decoys," features the utilitarian yet artistic expressions created in seven geographic areas of Louisiana from the mid-nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries. Part 2, "Contemporary Carvings," traces the evolution of decoy carving from a folk art to a competitive art and features decoys by some of today's most celebrated decorative carvers, including Jimmie Vizier and Tan and Jett Brunet. This catalog accompanied a 2007-8 exhibition at The Historic New Orleans Collection.

Birds of a Feather: Wildfowl Carving in Southeast Louisiana

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