Document Type
Dissertation
Publication Date
5-1997
Abstract
This thesis is an attempt to study in detail the career and life of one of the South's many overlooked painters, the New Orleans-based artist and teacher Paul Ninas (1903-1964). Ninas, known as "The Dean of New Orleans Artists" was intimately associated with the art scene in New Orleans and was influential in its formation and development through both his academic and aesthetic contributions. There are four basic catagories, shaped largely by subject matter and environment, in which the majority of Ninas' work can be classified: the Petris and West Indies paintings and drawings, scenes of New Orleans, mural commissions, and work produced after World War II. An acute observer, Ninas reflected the social conditions of his time in his work as well as the avant garde ideas of the New York and European Modernist painters. Through his many posts as public teacher, lecturer, exhibitor, juror and private instructor, Ninas greatly impacted the development of the modem art in New Orleans from the 1930s to the 1960s by bringing these concepts to the local arts community both through his art and through his ideas.
Recommended Citation
Waterfield, Will Douglas. "Paul Ninas: Dean of New Orleans Artists." Master's thesis, Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, 1997.