Jim Steg (1922-2001) was the most influential printmaker to be based in New Orleans in the twentieth century. He arrived in New Orleans in the early 1950s to teach printmaking at Newcomb College, after serving in the United States Army in World War II and training with renowned printmaking professor Mauricio Lasanksy (1914-2014) in Iowa. During his long and productive career, Steg used almost every known printmaking method and even pioneered several of his own.

He also trained countless young artists in his tenure of more than forty years as a beloved professor at Newcomb College. This exhibition reveals Steg as both an innovator in the field of printmaking, and an artist at the forefront of several major twentieth-century movements. It also details his fascinating and multifaceted career, which included time as a soldier responsible for deceiving the armies of the Third Reich by staging troop movements with inflatable tanks, appearances at the Carnegie International exhibition of contemporary art in the late 1940s, and his role in inspiring many now renowned artists as a teacher in New Orleans. Jim Steg: New Work, includes etchings, woodcuts, drawings of refugees made during World War II, photo-resist etchings, Xerox toner works, and many others that have never before been on public display. The exhibition also celebrates the acquisition of several new pieces and expands upon Steg’s last monographic show, which NOMA also presented nearly forty years ago.

Jim Steg: New Work is organized by the New Orleans Museum of Art and is supported by Stephen W. Clayton and the Azby Fund. Additional support is provided by Andrew and Robyn Schwarz, John Abajian and Scott Simmons, and Ann and Holly Barnett.