Upcoming Exhibitions

The South's Most Elusive Artist: Walter Inglis Anderson

on view September 17, 2026–January 3, 2027

The LSU Museum of Art is pleased to host The South’s Most Elusive Artist: Walter Inglis Anderson, an exhibition of over 40 works by American artist, Walter Inglis Anderson. The exhibition is organized by the Walter Anderson Museum of Art (WAMA) in Ocean Springs, MS, and draws from WAMA’s Permanent Collection and that of the Estate of Walter Anderson. The exhibition includes rarely seen watercolors, block prints, ceramics, and sketches alongside some of Anderson’s most recognizable and iconic works. This exhibition will be on view at the LSU Museum of Art from September 17, 2026–January 3, 2027.

Born in 1903 on Broadway Street in New Orleans, Louisiana, Anderson came of age during a period of rapid modernization across the American South. As industrialization reshaped the mainland, he increasingly sought refuge in the solitude of the natural world, particularly the barrier islands beyond the Mississippi Sound. His subject matter ranges widely—from the Indigenous inhabitants of the Gulf Coast to the endangered birds and animals that once freely roamed its shorelines. He is perhaps best known for his intimate watercolors of Horn Island, a remote barrier island twelve miles off the coast of Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Rowing alone in a small skiff, Anderson spent days observing and recording the island’s flora and fauna, often working on simple 8.5 x 11-inch sheets of typing paper. These modest materials belie the power of the resulting images, which capture both the majesty and the fierce unpredictability of the natural world.

Anderson’s artworks and writings serve as meditations on perception and presence. “The realization of form and space is through feeling,” he wrote. “When I feel the beauty of a flower on the trunk of a tree, I am at once inducted into a world of three dimensions and have a sense of form which is opposite of artificial forms and conventions.” His reflections illuminate the philosophical core of the artist’s practice: a belief that careful attention to nature offers transcendence and renewal.

Anderson lived a life marked by privacy and periods of self-imposed isolation. Yet he left behind an almost complete artistic record, from childhood drawings to works created in the final days of his life, many preserved in his coastal cottage in Ocean Springs. Through these drawings, paintings, and ceramic works, viewers encounter not only the landscapes and creatures of the Gulf Coast, but also the inner life of an artist who struggled against human frailty and found profound meaning in the rhythms of the natural world. The South’s Most Elusive Artist: Walter Inglis Anderson offers a rare opportunity to engage with a body of work that continues to astonish and delight, reconnecting us to the beauty, complexity, and fragile wonder of the environment that surrounds us.

Southern Gothic: Literary Intersections with Art from the Johnson Collection

on view October 1, 2026–January 3, 2027

This fall the LSU Museum of Art presents Southern Gothic: Literary Intersections with Art from The Johnson Collection. Drawing from the celebrated holdings of The Johnson Collection in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and Louisiana institutions and private collectors, this exhibition explores how visual artists have grappled with the American South’s layered history through a lens long cultivated in Southern literature.

Originally curated as a collaboration between The Johnson Collection and Wofford College, also in Spartanburg, the show examines how nineteenth- and twentieth-century artists employed potent visual language to transcribe the tensions between the South’s idyllic aura and its historical realities. Using Southern Gothic literary traditions as inspiration, the grouping considers how artists translate into visual form the same tensions found in the writings of William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Tennessee Williams, and Toni Morrison. Often described as a mood rather than a strict genre, Southern Gothic blends elements of horror, romance, decay, spirituality, and dark humor. In painting, printmaking, and sculpture, these sensibilities emerge as evocative landscapes, charged domestic interiors, allegorical scenes, stereotypical antebellum imagery, and portraits that hint at psychological depth and social complexity.

The core group of artworks has been expanded to engage Louisiana’s distinctive cultural environments, layered histories, and enduring traditions. Objects from The Johnson Collection are placed in conversation with selections from LSUMOA’s permanent collection and significant loans from the Louisiana State Museums system, the Newcomb Art Museum at Tulane University, the renowned Roger Houston Ogden Collection, and art collector Jeremy Simien. This expanded framework creates a dynamic dialogue between regional voices and the broader scope of Southern art history. Together, the objects illuminate how artists have negotiated myth and memory, confronting the South’s romanticized imagery alongside its difficult and often contradictory realities.

Founded in 2002, The Johnson Collection has grown into a distinguished holding of more than 1,400 objects spanning multiple centuries that trace the cultural evolution of the American South. The organization champions the pivotal role Southern art plays within the national narrative and is dedicated to elevating historically under-recognized voices through thoughtfully curated publications and exhibitions that continually reassess and expand the story of Southern art.

Funding for the 2026 Parish America 250 Mini Grant has been provided by the State of Louisiana and administered by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities in partnership with the Louisiana Office of the Lieutenant Governor and the America 250 Louisiana State Commission. The views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this (publication, program, exhibition, website) do not necessarily represent those of either the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the America 250 Louisiana State Commission, or the State of Louisiana.

Sponsor an Exhibition

Your support helps the LSU Museum of Art bring extraordinary exhibitions and meaningful educational experiences to our community. Contributions directly support exhibition-related expenses, including artwork loans, transportation, installation, educational programming, interpretive materials, and public engagement initiatives. Because each exhibition carries unique costs and opportunities, sponsorships play a vital role in making world-class art accessible to audiences throughout Baton Rouge and the Gulf Coast region.