Cora Kelley Ward

Note: Originally from Eunice, Louisiana, Ward moved to New Orleans at the age of seventeen. She worked as a registered nurse, eventually married Dr. Simon Ward and began taking classes at Newcomb Art School. In the late 1940s, her marriage deteriorated, and Ward fled New Orleans to follow her creative dreams. She enrolled at Black Mountain College to hone her skills and learn from some of the greatest and most innovative artists of the time. She befriended and worked alongside numerous soon to be world-renowned artists and intellectuals, including the formidable and highly admired art critic, Clement Greenberg, who became a close confidant. She continued her studies at the IIT Institute of Design in Chicago and eventually landed in New York in 1955.

New York at the time was the bustling apex of the contemporary art movement, and Ward had no trouble finding a place for herself, inevitably making friends with the city’s greats such Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Frost and the aforementioned Greenberg. Ward often remained behind the scenes and behind the camera at gallery openings, documenting her influential friends in attendance through her photography. The enigmatic Ward was at the center of the dynamic 1960s New York art scene and surrounded herself with the most successful luminaries of the day, many of whom whose work would later grace the most hallowed of museum walls. A passionate artist in her own right, Ward’s works stylistically followed those of her more famous cohorts with an aesthetic all her own, evident in her many experiments with a variety of media. Her role within the group, while long forgotten and much overlooked, is nonetheless incredibly significant in a realm boasting of few women. While the art world at the time was relegated primarily to men, they found their equal in Ward.

In March of 2021, Garden and Gun published an extensive profile of Ward written by John Ed Bradley. Through Bradley’s careful research, Ward’s place among her contemporaries was finally cemented.

Ref.: Bradley, John Ed. “Unearthing the Art of Cora Kelley Ward”. Garden and Gun Feb./Mar., 2021. www.gardenandgun.com. Accessed Mar. 1, 2023.