Back in the 1980s, Bob Gordy was a star of the New Orleans art scene, right up there with Ida Kohlmeyer, John Scott, George Dureau and the rest of the paint-spattered pantheon.
But at the height of his creative powers, he was an early victim of the AIDS epidemic and died in 1986. Since then, Gordy seems to have disappeared from the Crescent City’s collective consciousness, even in art circles.
But a new exhibit titled “Robert Gordy: Outside the Mainstream,” at the New Orleans Museum of Art is meant to find the lost master a fresh audience. It’s a show that will bathe an older generation in nostalgia, and may turn younger art lovers onto one of New Orleans’ unique painters…