| BUNNY MATTHEWS |
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Artists' Directory
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Bunny MATTHEWS has been an artist/writer and/or
musician since approximately the age of 3. At 14, he was employed as a T-shirt artist in the French Quarter and
around the same time could be seen dancing wildly on The John Pela Show, WWL-TVs Saturday teen program. He graduated, with his life intact, from East Jefferson High
School in 1969. During the early 70s, Bunny become renowned for his "actual dialogue heard on the streets of New Orleans" cartoons in James K. Glassman's weekly newspaper, Figaro. In 1982, Bunny created Vic and Nat'ly for the Times-Picayune. Today, the "Nint' Ward's mos' famous couple" also regularly appear in Off Beat magazine and on WYES-TV, as well as gracing the sides of the entire fleet of Leidenheimer Baking Company's delivery trucks, a Bacchus Float, Liuzza's Restaurant T-shirts, posters celebrating Barq's 100th anniversary and a giant mural (painted in Bunny's living room) depicting urban New Orleans wildlife, on display at the Audubon Zoo. Another mural -- explaining the wonders of the New Orleans drainage system -- was commissioned by The Historic New Orleans Collection for the official City of New Orleans Pavilion at the 1984 World's Fair. Bunny has designed album covers and/or written liner notes for many Louisiana recording artists including Earl King, The Neville Brothers, James Booker, Snooks Eaglin, Smiley Lewis and Professor Longhair. His posters for Tipitinds adorned utility poles everywhere during the club's formative years. Bunny was a founding member of Galerie Jules Laforgue, organized by the late George Febres, the Father of the Visionary Imagists. Bunny's work has been exhibited at the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Contemporary Arts Center, the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts, the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and the St. Tammany Art Association. Many of his original drawings are in the permanent collection of the Historic New Orleans Collection. Bunny's daily talk show on Cox Cable, Da Vic and Nat'ly Show was nominated for an Ace award in 1985. The guests included Cob Calloway, Lee Dorsey, Marilyn Chambers, a voodoo priestess and a couple of poodle groomers. |
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