NEW ORLEANS / AGILITYPR.NEWS / July 30, 2026 / This fall, the Historic New Orleans Collection (HNOC) will debut the limited-time exhibition “Bunny Matthews: His Life, Art, and Obsessions,” the first-ever retrospective of the artist’s work. Opening Friday, Sept. 18, the free exhibition offers a comprehensive look at the world of Will Bunn “Bunny” Matthews III, examining his extensive career as a cartoonist, music journalist and keen observer of New Orleans culture.

Matthews was always in pursuit of authenticity. As a writer, he penned incendiary, entertaining music reviews and poetic observations on local culture. As a cartoonist, he skillfully caricatured the dialects and characters of New Orleans. The exhibition will explore the world of Matthews and his iconic characters, Vic and Nat’ly—crystallizations of “Yat” stereotypes who took The Times-Picayune by storm in 1982. It will also highlight Bunny’s many obsessions—music, Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest—and delve into the controversy surrounding the artist throughout his career. 

“For nearly four decades, cartoonist and music writer Bunny Matthews shared his fascination and strong opinions about New Orleans life and culture,” said HNOC Chief Curator Jason Wiese. “This exhibition provides a visual and auditory exploration of Bunny’s work as he celebrated and poked fun at New Orleans music, food, accents, and customs, holding up a mirror that reflected both the good and not-so-good aspects of our complicated city.”

As stewards of the world’s largest collection of materials related to the history and culture of New Orleans and the Gulf South, HNOC has collected Matthews’ work since 1979. Following the artist’s death in 2021, HNOC acquired the Bunny Matthews Archive, an 800-plus-item collection of his original drawings, correspondence and ephemera. Complementing the exhibition is the HNOC publication “Bunny Matthews: His Life, Art, and Obsessions,” the first biography and monograph of the artist. Written by music and culture writer Alison Fensterstock and comics historian Michael Tisserand, the book captures Matthews in all his messy glory, with galleries of the artist’s work punctuating the narrative. Together, the book and exhibition will provide a sketch of the city in the latter half of the 20th century and the dawn of the 21st through Matthews’ unique perspective. Preorders begin Aug. 1 at shophnoc.com. The book will launch alongside the exhibition’s opening in September.

To celebrate the debut of this exciting new exhibition and book, HNOC will host Bunny Day Saturday, Sept. 19. The day-long celebration will include an author talk and book signing hosted by music journalist Jordan Scott, a lecture on the iconic Yat accent and a Vic and Nat’ly costume contest hosted by Peggy Scott Laborde, along with plenty of lagniappe. Bunny Day is free and open to the public.

“Bunny Matthews: His Life, Art, and Obsessions” is made possible thanks to the generous support of HNOC’s Bienville Circle. The exhibition is free to the public and will remain on view from Sept. 18 through May 9, 2027. For more information or to plan your upcoming visit, go to hnoc.org.