Ethel Claiborne Dameron Lecture Series

The West Baton Rouge Historical Association is pleased to host its annual Ethel Claiborne Dameron Lecture Series on Sunday, November 13th at 2:00 PM. This year’s event will feature guest speaker, Elizabeth Chubbuck Weinstein on Angela Gregory: Doyenne of Louisiana Sculpture. This talk will take place at the West Baton Rouge Museum and will accompany a current exhibition bearing the same title. A reception hosted by the Historical Association’s Hospitality Committee will follow the presentation.

Few women ventured outside the home to have professional careers before gaining the right to vote – and even fewer chose to become artists. Yet, a young woman from New Orleans named Angela Gregory was determined “to learn to cut stone” – and eventually became the first woman sculptor to achieve international acclaim in 1928. Angela Gregory’s legacy includes major architectural commissions throughout Louisiana and three monuments, one of them in Port Allen. Elizabeth Weinstein is currently researching the artist’s life and work. She will present Angela’s story and explain the significance of her work as a woman artist in the early part of the twentieth century. She will share images of the artist’s work across her career with particular emphasis on those located in and around Baton Rouge and will touch upon the relationship forged between the artist and “Puffy” Dameron, who was instrumental in Angela’s selection for the Henry Watkins Allen Monument.

Elizabeth Chubbuck Weinstein curated the WBRM’s long-running exhibition on the work of Angela Gregory, which will be presented in three phases over the next few years. She is an independent curator, writer, and museum consultant. From 2002-2020, she was Chief Curator and Director of Interpretation at the Louisiana Art & Science Museum in Baton Rouge. She has served in senior management roles at the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Alexandria Museum of Art, and Galerie Simonne Stern, a commercial contemporary art gallery. She formerly oversaw the grant program of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. Elizabeth is a past president of the Louisiana Association of Museums and the Louisiana Art Conservation Alliance and a past member of the Louisiana State Arts Council. In 2017, she was honored by the Louisiana Association of Museums with the Career Professional Award for her statewide contributions to the museum field over her past years of service.

The Ethel Claiborne Dameron Lecture Series is free and open to the public. This event is offered annually in memory of West Baton Rouge Historical Association and West Baton Rouge Museum founder, Ethel Claiborne Dameron affectionately known as “Puffy.”