George Febres

A charismatic and influential artist, curator, and gallery owner, George Febres was a spirited participant in the resurgence of New Orleans as a regional art center beginning in the 1970s. Immigrating to New Orleans from Ecuador in 1965, Febres embraced the local art community and graduated from the fine arts programs at the University of New Orleans (UNO) and Louisiana State University (LSU). Febres’s work incorporated surrealist and pop art elements with humorous, imaginative, and outrageous visual puns, as in his most well known piece, “Alligator Shoes (Thom McCann Eat Your Heart Out).” Febres opened the Galerie Jules Laforgue, named after his relative the French symbolist poet, and showcased a talented southern regional group of artists known as the “Visionary Imagists.”

Febres died on May 21, 1996, at his home in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans of complications from AIDS. His work is in the collection of the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institution, the Wifredo Lam Center for Contemporary Art in Havana, Cuba, the Mississippi Museum of Art, and The Historic New Orleans Collection, where he donated his personal papers.

Bio courtesy of 64 Parishes

Profile photo courtesy of The Historic New Orleans Collection. A gift from the Dr. Jerah Johnson Archive.