Salazar: Portraits of Influence in Spanish New Orleans, 1782-1802

In conjunction with the Tricentennial celebration of New Orleans, Salazar: Portraits of Influence in Spanish New Orleans, 1782-1802 will tell the story of Yucatán-born Josef Xavier Francisco de Salazar y Mendoza (c. 1750-1802), whose career spanned most of the Spanish administration of New Orleans. Through a gathering and re-examination of about twenty of his most pertinent works, a collective portrait of Spanish colonial New Orleans will be achieved. Further, his oeuvre will be further contextualized in relation to works by other early New Orleans portraitists such as Antonio Meucci, François M. Guyol de Guiran (1775-1849) and Louis Collas (1775-1856), whose careers and works are reactive of the city as a site of mobility and transatlantic artistic exchange.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website

Image: Josef Salazar y Mendoza, Don Antonio Mendez (1750-1829) and His Family, oil on canvas, 36 x 49 in, 1795, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Robert J. Patrick