The New Orleans Museum of Art has opened a new special exhibition dedicated to native New Orleanian Hayward Oubre, whose professional artistic career spanned from 1940 to his retirement in 1981. The name “Structural Integrity” refers most directly to the fascinating large-scale wire sculptures — usually made of coat hangers — that Oubre is most known for.
Extensive art historical education — culminating in a master’s degree from University of Iowa — informs Oubre’s work, along with his experiences serving in the military. He was also a light-skinned Black man who lived in the South for most of his life, and his experience of the Civil Rights Movement shaped his identity and work.
Oubre was influential not only through his art production but also by directly molding the minds of future generations of Black artists. He had an extensive career at historically Black universities, starting as the first fine art graduate from Dillard University through his teaching career at Alabama State University and Winston-Salem State University, where he founded the art department.
“Structural Integrity,” curated by Katelyn D. Crawford from the Birmingham Museum of Art, showcases Oubre’s wide-ranging oeuvre, including prints and paintings, rather than just his famous wire structures. His ability to work equally well in three disparate mediums and many different styles makes for a fascinating walkthrough of the exhibit, leaving visitors wondering how one man could have made all the pieces in the gallery.
Along with working in varied materials, Oubre also moved smoothly between realism and abstraction, particularly in his paintings and wire sculptures. An almost life-sized, highly realistic wire sculpture of a horse greets visitors at the entrance, and a rooster and lamb, both just as realistic, add to the whimsy. In the very same galleries, stylized human forms are scattered throughout, and highly abstracted geometric sculptures that reflect his interests in technology, social issues and the Space Race occupy an entire room.
The geometric abstraction carries into his later paintings as well, with colorful compositions that make social and political commentary while reflecting his knowledge of art history and Black history — particularly foundational thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance like W. E. B. Dubois.
Oubre’s earlier paintings, however, show how he adapted his classical training as a fine artist to his own interests. “Wilted,” for example, is a painting of a Black man sitting at a table adorned with a vase of wilted flowers. On the surface it is a traditional portrait, but the tired expression on the subject’s face and his association with the flowers make it a commentary on racial tensions at the time.
Oubre’s prints are particularly interesting as the style diverges from both his paintings and his sculptures. Working with etchings on paper and only producing prints from 1946 to 1948 while at the University of Iowa, Oubre continued to discuss racial identity in the United States through metaphorical and religious motifs. His evocative “Double Vision” print makes literal Dubois’ concept of the same name by centering a man holding one of his eyes that looks back at him, showing how Black Americans were forced to see themselves through separate Black and white lenses.
Along with his art, a section of archival material allows Oubre’s identity and career to be fully fleshed out in the exhibit. Texts he wrote on color and art theory show that along with being a talented artist, he was also a forward-thinking educator. With material from photographs and military enlistment documents to his college diplomas and a video of one of his lectures, this section lets visitors fully understand the importance of his work and feel they really knew him.
“Structural Integrity” is the first retrospective exhibition specifically dedicated to Oubre, and it provides an all-encompassing look into his fascinating and diverse artistic practice. It will be on view at the New Orleans Museum of Art from Jan. 30 to May 3.