A Sojourn in Paradise: Jack Robinson in 1950s New Orleans

With A Sojourn in Paradise: Jack Robinson in 1950s New Orleans, Howard Philips Smith continues his exploration of gay life in that fabled city. Robinson?s moody photographs of prominent New Orleanians and his extensive recording of Carnival in that period are like treasures resurrected by Smith?s keen eye. He and curator Emily Oppenheimer have given us an invaluable collection of previously unseen New Orleans. Henri Schindler, author of Mardi Gras New Orleans and the Mardi Gras Treasures series

In A Sojourn in Paradise, Howard Philips Smith permits us to see how time, place, and Jack Robinson?s vision coalesced to make a compelling photographic statement of an era. With Smith?s insightful text and Robinson?s portraits and cityscapes, the New Orleans of the 1950s comes to light in a new way. With the French Quarter as a major backdrop, artists, designers, and influencers share the stage that is Robinson?s viewfinder. John H. Lawrence, director of museum programs, The Historic New Orleans Collection

Jack Robinson?s photographs of the New Orleans cultural scene in the postwar era, the subject of this significant new book by Howard Philips Smith, reflect Robinson?s notable talents as an artist and a photographer, as well as his unique position as an insider in both the city?s art world and its gay community. . . . Smith features many French Quarter characters in this book, noting that Robinson became part of a group of artists, writers, designers, musicians, preservationists, illustrators, restaurateurs, travel agents, and antiquarians. In addition to George Dunbar and Robert Helmer (founders of the Orleans Gallery), Smith refers to figures including Dusti Bongé, Jean Seidenberg, Katherine Choy, Lee Bailey, Leonard Parrish, Tilden Landry, Clay Shaw, Yvonne Fasnacht, Ella Brennan, Jack Beech, Bruce Butterworth, Claire Evangelista, and Elmo Delacroix Avet. Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams also appear in the book, as does noted New York art dealer Betty Parsons. J. Richard Gruber, PhD, director emeritus of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, active independent curator, art historian, and author, most recently of Dusti Bongé, Art and Life: Biloxi, New Orleans, New York