EARL A. BARTHé (1922–2010)

Earl A. Barthé died on January 11 at the age of eighty-seven, reports Douglas Martin for the New York Times. Barthé created cornices, friezes, and ceiling medallions whose character and workmanship drew recognition from the Smithsonian and the National Endowment for the Arts. Barthé died at his home in New Orleans, his son, Hurchail, said.

In 2001, Barthé’s work was included in an exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art that traveled to the Smithsonian and elsewhere. He received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2005. Nick Spitzer, a Tulane anthropology professor and host of the public-radio show American Routes, has called Barthé “the Jelly Roll Morton of plasterers,” referring to the celebrated New Orleans jazz pianist.

Jazz, in fact, figured in Barthé’s work. Spitzer said in an interview that many early jazz players of the same Creole-African heritage as Barthé worked in building trades. Johnny St. Cyr, a jazz banjo and guitar musician who played with Morton and Louis Armstrong in the 1920s, was also a plasterer. Barthé liked using musical terms in talking about his craft, saying he saw clarinets in his moldings and bass fiddles at the bottom of his arches. “It all have to be in tune,” he said in a Louisiana patois sprinkled with French phrases and hearty laughs.