New Orleans native George Valentine Dureau studied fine art at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, and architecture at Tulane University, New Orleans. He was a painter and a photographer and is best known for his black-and-white photographs exploring the male nude, the working class, little people, and disabled people. Using only natural light from his studio windows Dureau captured unexpected, and nontraditional subjects in formal, classical compositions. His work was homoerotic and he treated his subjects, who were often his friends and lovers, with tenderness, and their images take on an ethereal quality. His work and style inspired Robert Mapplethorpe, who he counted as a friend. Dureau’s work has been exhibited at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Los Angeles (2017); the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2017); the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans (2011 and 2006); and the New Orleans Museum of Art (2009).
