Born in 1930 in a working-class Brooklyn family, Jean Seidenberg quickly made art his livelihood. As a teenager, he worked in galleries and learned framing and the craft of silkscreen printing. Through those years, Seidenberg educated his eye in New York's museums. His work is filled with references---to the incisive line of Edgar Degas, to Willem de Kooning's freedom with gesture, to the sensuality of Gustave Courbet.

Working in New Orleans since 1951, Seidenberg practiced in one of the few American cities disposed to support a full-time figure painter. In the late 1950s, he...