Discipline: Visual Art

Morris Hobbs

Discipline: Visual Art
Region: New Orleans, LA
MacDowell Fellowships: 1944, 1945
Morris Hobbs (1892-1967) took classes at the Art Institute of Chicago and at the age of 17 was hired as a draftsman at an architectural firm. From 1918-1919, he served in France with the Allied Expeditionary Force. While there he contracted influenza which resulted in the loss of his hearing. After the war he lived in Toledo, Ohio, with his wife and two daughters and worked as a draftsman for the Craven and Mager architectural firm. Tragically, both partners drowned in a boating accident in 1928 and the firm closed. With the stock market crash and the Great Depression, Hobbs was unemployed with no imminent job opportunities. He decided to devote himself to creating art, focusing primarily on printmaking. He took classes, traveled to France on an extended sketching trip, submitted his prints for exhibitions, and by 1931, he had rented a studio in Chicago. In 1938 this native Midwesterner made his first sketching trip to New Orleans and discovered inspiration in the French Quarter’s historic buildings for his enduringly popular series of prints collectively titled “Old New Orleans.” Concerned about the haphazard and insensitive renovations of the city’s historical buildings in the 1930s and 1940s, Hobbs envisioned his Old New Orleans series as both an artistic endeavor and a crusade to document imperiled buildings. His attention to detail, accurate proportions, and sensitivity to the nuances of the picturesque structures attest to his formal training as an architect. He moved there permanently the next year.

Studios

Alexander

Morris Hobbs worked in the Alexander studio.

Originally designed to be a visual art gallery, this facility was built in memory of the late John White Alexander (1856-1915) and funded by Elizabeth Alexander and their son James. John White Alexander was highly regarded as a portrait painter and, in the early part of the 20th century, served…

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