Sheraton New Orleans Hotel
Learn More About Our Cultural Connections
With a deep passion for supporting its community, the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel illustrates its commitment to bringing the New Orleans culture to life for hotel guests through local partnerships and exhibitions. Throughout the first floor of the hotel, guests will find historical photographs depicting scenes from what New Orleans was like in the 1950s from photographer Jack Robinson. They will get a glimpse of the Louisiana landscape and life in South Louisiana through the eyes of the late artist, George Rodrigue as prints from his famous Blue Dog series hang in the Rodrigue Gallery and in the atrium lobby. Explore these two partnerships in more detail below and come stay with us for a more up close and personal look into our cultural connections.
Jack Robinson Gallery
Experience the Rich Beauty & Energy of Canal Street from the 1950s
Equipped with a Rolleiflex camera and Kodak Safety Film, photographer Jack Robinson explored and captured on film the cityscapes of 1950s New Orleans. His street portraits show a visually rich world of 19th-century architecture complete with modern glass and steel skyscrapers.
He captured an intimate place where workmen, shop girls, nuns, businessmen, sailors, and white-gloved ladies--black, white and Creole--mingled on the sidewalks and neutral ground as they moved in and out of the French Quarter, up and down Canal Street, and the Central Business District.
It has been nearly sixty years since the photographer captured these images that remind of us of the beauty, spirit, personalities, and energy of a great city. Today, the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel is thrilled to partner with the Jack Robinson Archive and Professor Sarah Wilkerson Freeman (historian and curator) in order to bring you examples of the famed photographer’s work throughout our hotel. Currently, twenty-four of Robinson's 1950s street portraits are on display in the Canal St. windows of our hotel, where they now hang in a double-sided installation with twelve large format images suspended at street-level, easily seen by the public, and another twelve visible from inside our lobby. An additional twelve have been installed in the lobby's interior and plans have been made to extend the exhibition into other spaces within our hotel, making the project a virtual museum. Most of the exhibit photographs were taken in the vicinity of the 500 block of Canal St.
These images were among thousands of negatives discovered in the home of photographer Jack Robinson after his death in Memphis, Tennessee in 1997. They are part of an extensive collection of photos Robinson produced during the 1950s in New Orleans where he began his career.
The Rodrigue Art Gallery at Sheraton New Orleans Hotel
Born and raised in South Louisiana, George Rodrigue captured and preserved the land, traditions and people found throughout Cajun country through his paintings. In the early 1990s, Rodrigue’s Blue Dog series, which was based on the French-Cajun loup-garou legend, eventually became one of his greatest success stories and led him to worldwide fame.
Equally as passionate about philanthropy as he was his own art, Rodrigue founded the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts, which advocates for the importance of arts education. The foundation helps to provide art supplies for schools, scholarships and arts integration through Louisiana A+ schools.
Through a partnership with the George Rodrigue Foundation, the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel is proud to display a number of George Rodrigue’s Blue Dog prints in the Rodrigue Gallery on the first floor of the hotel. To learn more about the life and artwork of George Rodrigue and to learn more about the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts, visit https://georgerodrigue.com/.