Wardell Picquet

Wardell Picquet is a New Orleans–born visual artist, designer, educator, and arts professional whose creative career spans more than four decades. He earned his degree in Art from Xavier University of Louisiana, where his studies included concentrations in Drawing, Graphic Design, and Printmaking. While at Xavier, he studied under the acclaimed New Orleans artist and MacArthur Fellow John T. Scott, whose mentorship became an important part of Picquet’s artistic foundation.

Before Hurricane Katrina, Picquet maintained a diverse creative and educational career in New Orleans. He worked as a fine artist, graphic designer, elementary art teacher, and high school graphics instructor. In 2001, he and two partners established REDDOT, New Orleans’ first full-color visual arts magazine dedicated to artists, exhibitions, and arts organizations. During the five years preceding Hurricane Katrina, he taught art to Pre-K through sixth-grade and special education students in the New Orleans Public Schools, as well as graphic design to high school students.

Displaced by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Picquet relocated to San Antonio, Texas, where he continued his work in the arts, education, design, and community engagement. His San Antonio experience has included work with StoneMetal Press Printmaking Center, the Carver Community Cultural Center, Bihl Haus Arts, the McNay Art Museum, Inspire Fine Art Community Center, and numerous local arts organizations and collectives.

For ten years, Picquet trained emerging graphic design professionals as an instructor at the International Academy of Design and Technology–San Antonio, later Sanford-Brown College. His community arts leadership has also included service on the Board of the Carver Community Cultural Center, work with the San Antonio African American Community Archive and Museum (SAAACAM), and service as Curator and Arts Community Liaison for the San Antonio Ethnic Art Society. He previously served as Gallery Coordinator for Bihl Haus Arts and currently teaches in its GO! Arts program.

Throughout these varied roles, Picquet has maintained his own studio practice. His work draws upon a lifelong engagement with drawing, printmaking, painting, design, pattern, texture, color, abstraction, and the human figure. His artistic journey connects two cities that have profoundly shaped his life and work—New Orleans, where his creative identity was formed, and San Antonio, where that practice has continued to evolve.

Picquet is the founder of Picquet Studios, an arts enterprise devoted to the production, instruction, and promotion of fine art and design, as well as creative collaboration with community and business partners.