Vase with Spanish Dagger Design, 1897; Marie de Hoa LeBlanc, artist; earthenware with underglaze polychrome ornament; Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane University.

The Moss Mystique: Southern Women and
Newcomb Pottery and Making Her Mark

Join us as we celebrate our two Spring exhibitions, The Moss Mystique: Southern Women and Newcomb Pottery and Making Her Mark with a reception, Thursday, March 5 at 5:30 p.m., featuring a lecture by Dr. Elyse D. Gerstenecker, Director of Curatorial Affairs and Curator of Decorative Arts at Telfair Museums, beginning at 6 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Founded in 1895 at the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College in New Orleans—a women’s higher education institution affiliated with Tulane University—Newcomb Pottery emerged as a commercial enterprise designed to put women’s artistic training into professional practice.

While male potters shaped the ceramic forms using clays sourced throughout the South, women designers were responsible for surface decoration, drawing inspiration from the region’s plants and wildlife. The pottery quickly gained international recognition for its craftsmanship and its perceived authenticity in representing Southern identity. These strong ties to place endure today, long after the pottery’s closure in 1939.

The Moss Mystique: Southern Women and Newcomb Pottery (Feb. 5–Dec. 4) examines the material practices, imagery, and regional affiliations of Newcomb Pottery, exploring how its artists visualized—and helped define—ideas of place in the American South. Through depictions of local flora, landscapes, and natural forms, the exhibition invites visitors to reconsider how regional identity is constructed, sustained, and transformed over time.

Presented in an adjacent gallery, Making Her Mark (Feb. 5–May 15) traces the stages of pottery production within the Newcomb Pottery business model. Graduates of the Newcomb College art program created hand-crafted ceramic wares that were sold in an on-site gallery, exhibited at world’s fairs, and distributed nationally. Committed to design and handcraft during the Industrial Revolution, Newcomb Pottery demonstrated how artistic ideals could be integrated into a viable commercial enterprise. The show documents the full scope of this enterprise, from classroom instruction and production to bookkeeping and sales.

Together, these exhibitions illuminate Newcomb Pottery’s central role within the museum’s collections and underscore its significance in the histories of women’s education, American decorative arts, and fine art traditions.

The Moss Mystique: Southern Women and Newcomb Pottery is co-organized by Telfair Museums and Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane University and curated by Dr. Elyse D. Gerstenecker. Making Her Mark is co-curated by Sierra Polisar, Head of Collections, and Kendyll Gross, Assistant Curator, at the Newcomb Art Museum. For more information, visit newcombartmuseum.tulane.edu.

Conradsen, David H., et al. The Arts & Crafts of Newcomb Pottery. Skira Rizzoli Publications ; Tulane University, Newcomb Art Gallery, 2013.

The New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane University brings the world’s leading authors to the university’s uptown campus for a multi-day celebration for book lovers of all ages. 

Now in its fifth year, the festival takes place March 12–15, 2026, on Tulane’s uptown campus.

What better way to start your day than with a guided tour of the museum's newest exhibitions Saturday, March 14 at 10 a.m. During the festival, you can also pick up a print release of the brochure Newcomb in Paris: Mary Given Sheerer and the American Pottery Movement by Kate Bonansinga. The Arts and Crafts of Newcomb Pottery will also be on sale at the museum and in the festival tent all weekend. The festival and the tour are free and open to the public.

Attic Black-figure Lekythos Vase with Charioteer Design, c. 500 BCE; Gela Painter, artist; Earthenware with black paint. Gift of Mr. Frank T. Howard to the Howard Tilton Memorial Library.

Newcomb Pottery is a cornerstone of the Newcomb Art Museum’s permanent collection, exemplifying the distinctive artistic vision and craftsmanship developed at Newcomb College. These works often serve as an entry point for visitors, orienting them to our decorative arts, which spans from circa 500 BCE to the present.

Through Adopt-A-Pot, you are invited to support the care and treatment of both historic and contemporary ceramics. Your financial contribution directly sustains the preservation of these works and ensures stewardship of the collection for future generations.

Read more about Adopt-A-Pot on our website: newcombartmuseum.tulane.edu/adopt-a-pot.

*Please note your adopted piece may not be on view in the gallery and the art remains in the custody of the Newcomb Art Museum collection.

Young Audiences of Louisiana (YALA) presents Baby ArtsPlay^TM classes at the museum for infants, toddlers, and their caregivers. Each free class engages early learners through movement, music, and socialization for young ones. Learn more and register at ya4la.org/events.

Lynda Benglis. Colored Painting Marks: Left and Right Hand #3, 1990. Egg tempera on paper, 38.5 x 27 in. Gift of William Fagaly

In recognition of Women’s History Month, we're not only acknowledging the groundbreaking artists of Newcomb Pottery, but another visionary artist shaped by Newcomb College.

Lake Charles native Lynda Benglis studied ceramics and painting at Newcomb College, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1964. After moving to New York, she became known in the late 1960s and early 1970s for site-specific installations using industrial materials such as liquid latex rubber, DayGlo paints, and phosphorescent pigmented polyurethane foam. Over the decades, Benglis’s sculptural practice has continued to engage with sensory perception and bodily movement, humor, fluid dynamics, and taking risks on materials and new processes.

The drawing “Left and Right Hand #3” is part of a series called Colored Painting Marks, in which the artist experiments with mark-making using both sides of her body to generate images. This work presently hangs in Gibson Hall on campus. Around New Orleans, Benglis’s work can also be seen at the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Poydras Corridor Sculpture Exhibition, and in the Big Lake in City Park, among other spaces. Please stay tuned to learn more about an exciting new exhibition Newcomb is developing for 2027 that will closely examine Benglis’s early artistic development along the Gulf Coast.

Explore the Collections

View Current Exhibitions

Public Programs

Newcomb Art Museum offers guided tours and an array of public programs, all free of charge. Designed around the salient themes and images of each exhibition, such activities speak to an array of community and campus interests. https://newcombartmuseum.tulane.edu/programs/

For more information on events and current exhibitions, visit: newcombartmuseum.tulane.edu

Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane is Free and Open to the Public.
The museum will be closed March 21–29 for the university Spring Break.
Regular Hours: Monday – Friday 10 AM – 5 PM | Saturday 11 AM – 4 PM | Sunday CLOSED

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