Royal Street in the French Quarter is often associated with fine antiques and exquisite chandeliers, but it is also home to a significant number of art galleries. It’s safe to say Royal Street offers one of the greatest concentrations of galleries in the South, and the French Quarter has become a serious destination for both international collectors and casual art enthusiasts.
The blocks closer to Canal Street tend to favor upscale, more established galleries, some of which have been in business for decades. Generally, these galleries cater to the very serious collector or those looking for museum-like experiences. However, in recent years several newer, more approachable spaces have opened in the 800 and 900 blocks of Royal Street. Visitors and locals alike are seeking to purchase art to remember and relive their time in New Orleans. With a wide variety of styles and price points, Royal Street has a piece for everyone.
A word of advice: the best way to experience and learn about the galleries on Royal Street is by strolling on foot and letting your tastes dictate your stops. There are many spaces worth seeing that aren’t mentioned below, but here’s a short list of visually striking galleries, ranging from fine to folk art. They are listed in order of street address, starting from the blocks closer to Canal and moving toward Esplanade.
Royal Street Art Galleries in New Orleans
Windsor Fine Art 221 Royal St. Stepping into Windsor Fine Art’s serene space is like a trip to a petite European museum. Visitors can see minor works by Dali and Miro, as well as sketches by Rembrandt. Windsor also showcases sculpture and more contemporary landscapes, including photorealism pop art paintings of iconic local New Orleans spots.
Angela King Gallery 241 Royal St. With its white walls, high ceilings, and tall windows, the Angela King Gallery could be a home in Manhattan. It’s a chic, inviting corner space that encourages visitors to peruse its eclectic collection of paintings, sculpture, and colorful glass pieces.
Sutton Gallery 519 Royal St. Sutton Gallery offers a colorful and eclectic collection that includes European styles, impressionism, contemporary, and local artists such as a current collection featuring bold images from the Mardi Gras krewe of Zulu. The gallery recently celebrated its one hundredth anniversary.
Kako 536 Royal St. Packed into Kako’s 12-foot-wide space is an affordable collection that includes traditional art but favors fun, folky, locally-made pieces and prints, many of which can be packed into a suitcase. Be sure to make your way all the way to the back and see the colorful pieces displayed in the courtyard.
Galerie Rue Royale 541 Royal St. Sleek, spare, and dark. Galerie Rue Royale specializes in contemporary French and French-inspired art for the serious collector.The back courtyard at Kako (Photo: Allison Aslup)
Funeral Gallery 811 Royal St. Funeral Gallery is dedicated to the surreal and macabre side of New Orleans. Opened by local artists Vinsantos and Mister Gregory, this gallery is the perfect place to browse before your Ghost Tour.
Gallery Orange 819 Royal St. This bright, bohemian gallery hosts plenty of events and openings to celebrate its artists and their works. Gallery Orange’s mission is to offer unique, distinctive artwork at fair market prices, and it features the work of both established artists and those whose art is more recently known.
Tanner Gallery and Studio 830 Royal St. Known for his paintings of trees, Tanner’s mission is to bring nature back into our homes and lives. He says, “…It is my hope that my paintings will give the viewer a small sense of that tranquility nature provides us and remind people how vital trees are to our existence.”
Frank Relle Gallery 910 Royal St. Frank Relle is a New Orleans photographer who recently joined the lower Royal Street art scene with his gallery located in a historic building that was once home to the Princess of Monaco. Relle’s long-exposure photographs of Louisiana homes and landscapes are set against antique décor in this unique space.
Red Truck Gallery 940 Royal St. Red Truck Gallery is a funky, inviting space specializing in Outsider Art, Americana, Contemporary Folk Art, Pop Surrealism, and Low Brow – adding a pop of color to the corner of Royal and St. Philip Streets. Pro tip: If you like both art and pizza, check out Red Truck clubhouse on Rampart Street which also features art and serves pizza until 3 am.
Antieau Gallery 927 Royal St. What began as a pop up art display at Jazz Fest is now housed in its own gallery for self-taught “visionary outsider” Chris Roberts-Antieau. A white cottage-like space showcases Antieau’s compelling fabric tableaux and assemblage pieces. Colorful, unique, folk-inspired and often times humorous work invites a visceral reaction and ultimately, reflection.
Harouni 933 Royal St. Harouni’s decidedly contemporary gallery features his own work. The paintings here at first appear fairly homogeneous and favor what appears to be melting male faces and figures. However, Harouni’s complex layering and use of texture invite closer inspection, techniques meant to echo the accretion of time and experience. Likewise, Harouini’s use of facial expression defies a single feeling and suggests the breadth of human emotion.
Pointe Coupee Creoles
Another historic area to Louisiana is Pointe Coupee, an area northwest of Baton Rouge. This area is known for the False River; the parish seat is New Roads, and villages including Morganza are located off the river. This parish is known to be uniquely Creole; today a large portion of the nearly 22,000 residents can trace Creole ancestry. The area was noted for its many plantations and cultural life during the French, Spanish, and American colonial periods. The population here had become bilingual or even trilingual with French, Louisiana Creole, and English because of its plantation business before most of Louisiana. The Louisiana Creole language is widely associated with this parish; the local mainland French and Creole (i.e., locally born) plantation owners and their African slaves formed it as communication language, which became the primary language for many Pointe Coupee residents well into the 20th century. The local white and black populations as well as persons of blended ethnicity spoke the language, because of its importance to the region; Italian immigrants in the 19th century often adopted the language. Common Creole family names of the region include the following: Battley, Parker, Guerin, Jarreau, Bridgewater, Decuir, Gremillion, Roberson, Christophe, Joseph, Part, Major, Valry, Robert, Francois, Aguillard, Duperon, St. Amant, Domingue, Patin, Porche, Chenevert, Carmouche, Gaines, Fabre, Jarreau, St. Romain, Bonaventure, Bergeron, Pourciau, Morel, Tounoir, and dozens more. Brian J. Costello, an 11th generation Pointe Coupee Parish Creole, is the premiere historian, author and archivist on Pointe Coupee's Creole population, language, social and material culture. Most of his 18 solely-authored books and five co-authored books as of 2014 specifically address these topics. He was immersed in the area's Louisiana Creole dialect in his childhood, through inter-familial and community immersion and is, therefore, one of the dialect's most fluent, and last, speakers. Avoyelles Creoles Avoyelles Parish has a history rich in Creole ancestry. Marksville has a significant populace of French Creoles who have Native American ancestry. The languages that are spoken are Louisiana French and English. This parish was established in 1750. The Creole community in Avoyelles parish is alive and well and has a unique blend of family, food and Creole culture. Creole family names of this region are: Sylvan, LeRoux, Auzenne, Mouton, Moten, Normand, Gaspard, Fontenot, Chargois, Fuselier, Ravarre, Perrie, Carriere, Barbin, DeBellevue, Goudeau, Bordelon, Gauthier, Lamartiniere, Lemoine, Gremillion, Broussard, Boutte, Esprit, Rabalais, Beaudoin, DeCuir, Dufour, DuCote, Deshotels, Muellon, Lemelle, Saucier, Guillory and Biagas. A French Creole Heritage day has been held annually in Avoyelles Parish on Bastille Day since 2012. Evangeline Parish Creoles This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. The specific problem is: Needs proper formatting in line with Manual of Style. Please help improve this section if you can. (November 2014) Evangeline Parish was formed out of the northwestern part of St. Landry Parish in 1910, and is therefore, a former part of the old Poste des Opelousas territory. Most of this region's population was a direct result of the North American Creole & Metis influx of 1763, the result of the end of the French & Indian War which saw former French colonial settlements from as far away as "Upper Louisiana" (Great Lakes region, Indiana, Illinois) to "Lower Louisiana's" (Illinois, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama), ceded to British America. The majority of these French Creoles and metis peoples chose to leave their former homes electing to head for the only 'French' exempted settlement area in Lower Louisiana, the "Territory of Orleans" or the modern State of Louisiana.
These Creoles and metis families generally did not remain in New Orleans and opted for settlement in the northwestern "Creole parishes" of higher ground. This area reaches upwards to Pointe Coupee, St. Landry, Avoyelles and what became Evangeline Parish in 1910. Along with these diverse metis & Creole families, came West African Creole slaves and free people of color. Still later, Saint-Domingue/Haitian Creoles, Napoleonic soldiers and 19th century French families would also settle this region. One of Napoleon Bonaparte's adjutant majors is actually considered the founder of Ville Platte, the parish seat of Evangeline Parish. General Antoine Paul Joseph Louis Garrigues de Flaugeac and his fellow Napoleonic soldiers, Benoit DeBaillon, Louis Van Hille and Wartelle descendants also settled in St. Landry Parish and became important public, civic and political figures.
They were discovered on the levee in tattered uniforms by a wealthy Creole planter, "Grand Louis' Fontenot of St. Landry (and what is now, Evangeline Parish), a descendant of one of Governor Jean-Batiste LeMoyne, Sieur de Bienville's French officers from Fort Toulouse, in what is now the State of Alabama. See Napoleon's Soldiers In America, by Simone de la Souchere-Delery, 1998. Many Colonial French, Swiss German, Austrian and Spanish Creole surnames still remain among prominent and common families alike in Evangeline Parish. Some later Irish and Italian names also appear. Surnames such as, Ardoin, Aguillard, Mouton, Moten, LeRoux, Fontenot, LaFleur, Bordelon, Brignac, Brunet, Buller (Buhler), Catoire, Chapman, Coreil, Darbonne, DeBaillion, DeVille, DeVilliers, Duos, Dupre' Estillette, Guillory, Milano-Hebert, Gradney, Landreneau, LaTour, LeBas, LeBleu, Miller, Morein, Moreau, Mounier, Ortego, Perrodin, Pierotti, Pitre (rare Acadian-Creole), Rozas, Saucier, Schexnayder, Sebastien, Sittig, Soileau, Veillon, Vidrine, Vizinat and many more are reminiscent of the late French Colonial, early Spanish and later American period of this region's history. See Louisiana's French Creole Culinary & Linguistic Traditions: Facts vs. Fiction Before And Since Cajunization 2013, by J. LaFleur, Brian Costello w/ Dr. Ina Fandrich. As of 2013, this parish was once again recognized by the March 2013 Regular Session of the Louisiana Legislature as part of the Creole Parishes, with the passage of SR No. 30. Other parishes so recognized include Avoyelles, St. Landry and Pointe Coupee Parishes. Natchitoches Parish also remains recognized as "Creole." Evangeline Parish's French-speaking Senator, Eric LaFleur sponsored SR No. 30 which was written by Louisiana French Creole scholar, educator and author, John laFleur II. The parish's namesake of "Evangeline" is a reflection of the affection the parish's founder, Paulin Fontenot had for Henry Wadsworth's famous poem of the same name, and not an indication of the parish's ethnic origin.
The adoption of "Cajun" by the residents of this parish reflects both the popular commerce as well as media conditioning, since this northwestern region of the French-speaking triangle was never part of the Acadian settlement region of the Spanish period. See Dr. Carl A. Brasseaux's "The Founding of New Acadia: The Beginnings of Acadian Life in Louisiana," 1765-1803. The community now hosts an annual "Creole Families Bastille Day (weekend) Heritage & Honorarium Festival in which a celebration of Louisiana's multi-ethnic French Creoles is held, with Catholic mass, Bastille Day Champagne toasting of honorees who've worked in some way to preserve and promote the French Creole heritage and language traditions. Louisiana authors, Creole food and cultural events featuring scholarly lectures and historical information along with fun for families with free admission and vendor booths are also a feature of this very interesting festival which unites all French Creoles who share this common culture and heritage. St. Landry Creoles St. Landry Parish has a significant population of Creoles, especially in Opelousas and its surrounding areas. The traditions and Creole heritage are prevalent in Opelousas, Port Barre, Melville, Palmetto, Lawtell, Swords, Mallet, Frilot Cove, Plaisance, Pitreville, and many other villages, towns and communities. The Roman Catholic Church and French/Creole language are dominant features of this rich culture. Zydeco musicians host festivals all through the year. Some Creole family names are: Ardoin, Vidrine, Davis, Fontenot, Mouton, Moten, LeRoux, Guillory, Esprit, Jolivette, Jolivet, Rosignon (Rousillion), Sonnier, Hollier, Frilot, Roberts, Papillion, Simien, Lemon(d), Gradney, Gradnigo, Declouette, Judge, Rideau, Barnabe, Bossier, Bushnell, Pain, Cezar, Lafleur, Thierry, Rene, Darbonne, Gobert, Coutee, Fontenot, Chargois, McCrea, Villere, LaChappelle, Delafosse, Dupre, Birotte, LeBon, Guilbeaux, Arceneaux, Breaux, Chevalier, Durousseau, Fruge', Lavergne, Chachere, Aubespin, Auzenne, Chenier, Chretien, Ledet, Fuselier, Carrier(e), LaStrapes, Lavigne, Piert, LaFleur, Lemelle, Leblanc, Deculus, Chavis, Victorian, St Mary, Caesar (Ceaser), Frank and Soileau .