Trailblazer Award
Arthur Roger is the owner and director of the Arthur Roger Gallery, located in the Arts District of New Orleans. A native of the city, he worked at an art gallery in the French Quarter while attending college. In 1978, he opened the Arthur Roger Gallery which enjoyed early success and soon earned a national reputation as a leading art gallery in New Orleans.
After Hurricane Katrina, he helped spearhead the renewal of the visual arts in New Orleans. In 2006, his gallery hosted a panel discussion that led to the art consultant Dan Cameron founding PROSPECT, now an international arts biennial in New Orleans. Throughout his gallery’s history, Arthur Roger has made efforts to feature the work of artists of diverse backgrounds. In 2017, he donated his personal artwork collection to the New Orleans Museum of Art. The Museum displayed the work in a special exhibition titled “Pride of Place: The Making of Contemporary Art in New Orleans”.
Arthur Roger has served on numerous boards and received local and national recognition for his philanthropic efforts. For several years he chaired the highly successful Halloween in New Orleans, which has raised over $4.1 million over the years and is the largest cumulative donor to Project Lazarus, which provides healthcare and support services for men and women with AIDS. He also began Arts Against AIDS in New Orleans, which raised money for the NO/AIDS Task Force (now CrescentCare). He chaired and organized fundraisers for the Louisiana chapter of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). He is a Trustee for The Greater New Orleans Foundation, and has chaired their LBGTQ Fund. He volunteered to assemble the art collections for the Human Rights Campaign Headquarters in Washington D.C. and the Greater New Orleans Foundation’s Center for Philanthropy. He also arranged for over 200 pieces of artwork to be donated and installed in CrescentCare’s community healthcare buildings on Elysian Fields Ave. and Canal St.
Arthur Roger’s service to our community over the last four decades is deeply appreciated, and NOAGE is very pleased to honor him as the Trailblazer that he is.