artist gustave blache iii portrays new orleans restauranteur leah

Dining Room (Leah Seated with Guests)
ARTIST GUSTAVE BLACHE III PORTRAYS NEW ORLEANS
RESTAURANTEUR LEAH CHASE IN HER ELEMENT
BY JOHN R. KEMP
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Pouring Oysters
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L
eah Chase is an artist, not with paints, stone or metal, but with
a palette of herbs, spices, and the seasoned knowledge of
a city and its culture. She moves about the kitchen of her New
Orleans restaurant like a painter before her canvas. In its dining
room, she reigns with an inviting grace and warmth that charm
all, from the famous and powerful to the ordinary. Her Dooky
Chase Restaurant is the heartbeat and soul of the surrounding
Treme neighborhood; its walls are filled with the work of
African-American artists, its role in the Civil Rights movement
now affirmed. She is the acknowledged queen of Creole cuisine.
Her gumbo z’herbes, traditionally served on Holy Thursday (the
last meal prepared with meat before Easter), is the quintessential
Creole dish.
In a new series of paintings titled Dooky Chase Restaurant, New
Orleans-raised New York artist Gustave Blache III gives a
glimpse of Chase behind the kitchen door, where few are
privileged to enter. There we see her in full cooking garb, wearing
Stirring Squash
Cutting Scallions
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Cutting Squash
a pink baseball cap, stirring the contents of a large pot (perhaps
a gumbo), checking a delivery, washing a pan, and cutting
vegetables. She’s surrounded by bottles and jars of seasonings,
plastic jugs of cooking oil, and pots and pans hanging from
a overhead rack. All await their turn.
Born in Madisonville in 1923, Chase’s name is synonymous
with the best of New Orleans-style Creole cooking. In 1945,
she married musician Edgar “Dooky” Chase II, whose
parents owned Dooky Chase Restaurant. After raising their
children, she took a more active role in the restaurant, first
as a hostess and later as a chef. Over the years, Chase
expanded the restaurant’s menu to include her family’s
Creole recipes, a move that has gained her international fame
and devoted, contented customers.
Aside from her culinary prowess, Chase’s list of community
honors is impressive. In 2010, she was inducted into the James
Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in
Stirring Pot
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Leah (Seated, Red Coat)
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Stirring Pot (Kitchen View)
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Dining Room (Leah Greeting Guests Standing)
America. The year prior, the Southern Food and Beverage
Museum in New Orleans named a permanent gallery in her
honor. She also has received the New Orleans Times-Picayune
Loving Cup Award, the Weiss Award from the National
Conference of Christians and Jews, the Torch of Liberty
Award, the Outstanding Woman Award from the National
Council of Negro Women, the University of New Orleans
Entrepreneurship Award, and numerous honors from the
NAACP.
Blache began the Leah Chase series in 2009, when his
representative, Eugene Daymund, proposed the idea. Mrs. Chase
agreed. “She gets there at nine in the morning to do prep work
in a hot kitchen,” Blache, 34, says, recalling the days he spent
observing, sketching, and photographing her for reference. “I
wanted to show the hard work she puts in there. Dooky Chase’s
is a gathering place for all New Orleans. It’s a universal
meeting place and culturally important to the city.”
Blache — who moved back home to New Orleans in 2004
before Hurricane Katrina forced his return to New York City
— is an exceptional painter. His work has been likened to an
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earlier artist with New Orleans ties, French Impressionist Edgar
Degas. Blache cites as inspiration both the Ashcan School and
19th-century Impressionists; both movements focused on
glimpses of people immersed in everyday routines. In 2005
and 2006, Blache painted a series of mop makers plying their
trade at the Lighthouse for the Blind in New Orleans. He is
infatuated with process and people engaged in work.
Blache is a graduate of the New Orleans Center for Creative
Arts, the School of Visual Arts in Savannah, Georgia, and the
School of Visual Arts in New York. “The School of Visual Arts
is one of the best programs in the country in working from
the figure and giving work an edge,” says Blache. “It was there
I learned to tell a story in my paintings.” The story he has
chosen to tell, however, is in New Orleans.
______________________________________________________________
John R. Kemp retired as deputy director of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities
in August 2011. He is a freelance writer who lives in Diamondhead, Miss. His books include
Alan Flattmann's French Quarter Impressions, Rolland Golden: The Journeys of a Southern
Artist, and The Solace of Nature: A Photographer's Journey with Julia Sims.
For more information about Gustav Blache III and his art works, log on to:
www.gustaveblache.com.
Dining Room (Leah Greeting Guests Standing Study)
CELEBRATING
LEAH CHASE
In 2011, Gustave Blache III’s painting of Leah
Chase Cutting Squash (page 13) was acquired
for the permanent collection of the National
Portrait Gallery, part of the Smithsonian
Institution in Washington, D.C. Blache’s painting
will enshrine Chase among portraits of other
prominent Americans.
Chase, who turned 90 in 2011, will also be
celebrated in an exhibition of Blache’s paintings
at the New Orleans Museum of Art. An
opening party will inaugurate and raise funds
for the Leah Chase Art Purchase Fund on April
23, 2012. The exhibition will remain on view
through Sept. 9, 2012. For more information on
the exhibition and attending the opening gala,
log on to noma.org or call (504) 658-4100.
Dining Room (Leah Greeting Guests Standing Study)
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