Arthur Kern (American/New Orleans, b. 1931), "Carnival Madness", oil on canvas, signed lower right, signed twice and personalized on stretcher, typed label with artist and title en verso, 42 1/8 in. x 14 in., framed. Exh.: Le Petit Salon, New Orleans, 1952. Note: Famously elusive and private, Arthur Kern is a native of New Orleans who received his BA and MFA from Tulane University. After a brief stint teaching at the University of Southwest Louisiana (now University of Louisiana at Lafayette) from 1967 to 1969, Kern taught at Tulane from 1969 until his retirement in 1996. Little information can be found on Kern’s early work, as he destroyed most of his paintings and drawings for a fresh start in sculpture some four decades ago. Kern, not wanting his work and ideas to be influenced by the marketplace, is also quoted as saying: “I try to keep only what I think is the best that I can do and if it doesn’t come up to that I don’t feel that it’s worth surviving.”In 2016, Kern consented to an exhibition of his sculpture at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, curated by the novelist John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Arresting and surrealist, Kern’s sculpture is a clear transformation from this early painting that survived the artist’s purge. However, foreshadowing hints of the mysterious and unnerving that define Kern’s sculpture can be found upon close examination, particularly in the prone costumed figure in the foreground. In “Carnival Madness,” Kern stylistically harkens to popular American Scene painting techniques with a sharply vertical composition depicting the chaos of Carnival revelers amidst the architecture of the French Quarter. The atmospheric lighting and bold shadows of the nighttime setting add a sinister element that heightens the contrast between the familiar subject and the unsettling feeling it provokes in the viewer – a contrast Kern has clearly mastered in both two and three dimensions.Ref.: Mazur, Jacqueline. “Strange, Beautiful and Surreal, the Work of New Orleans Sculptor Arthur Kern is Revealed Decades Later.” WGNO. June 29, 2016. www.wgno.com. Accessed May 31, 2022. Norwood, Nicondra. “New Ogden Exhibit Features Artist Some Presumed Dead.” Fox 8. Mar. 30, 2016. www.fox8live.com. Accessed May 31, 2022; Robertson, Campbell. “At 84, an Artist Tries Something New: Displaying His Work.” The New York Times. Mar. 28, 2016. www.nytimes.com. Accessed May 31, 2002.

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