Description:

Noel Rockmore
American/Louisiana, 1928-1995
"Rev. Mike Stark"
oil on canvas
1969, signed, dated and inscribed "New Orleans" lower right, titled upper left, framed.

Note: Once proclaimed "King of the Hippies," Reverend Michael "Mike" Stark (1939-1998) moved to New Orleans from Texas in 1962 to attend the Baptist Theological Seminary. By the mid-1960s, he had made a permanent home in the French Quarter where he was a fixture on the local scene over the next thirty years. He founded or co-founded a dozen or more different projects benefiting the community, including a street ministry for young people that operated a free medical clinic and Baptist mission. In 1982, he established the Mask Market as part of his New Orleans Mask Makers Guild, which helped to promote and support local mask artists. During the World's Fair of 1984 in New Orleans, Stark operated a shop called the Exposed Flea, just outside the fair's perimeter, and later with a young business partner, Ann Guccione, and others he owned a mask shop in the French Quarter with a worldwide following called the Little Shop of Fantasy.

In his early days in the French Quarter, Stark was part of a group of bohemians who gravitated around Preservation Hall, where he worked the door and inevitably met the famous artist Noel Rockmore who became a close friend. "He [Stark] loved to dress up," according to Jo Ann Clevenger (2011) in whose Decatur Street costume shop Stark also worked. The gay former Baptist minister was known for wearing color kaftans and often a hat or headpiece. Rockmore depicts him in this distinctive attire in the significant and near life-size portrait offered here. Seated against backdrop of French Quarter rooftops in a colorful chair and with a pensive expression, Stark embodies the bohemian vibe for which he was known. A classic and colorful New Orleans personality, Stark's legacy of activism reverberates in the French Quarter to this day.

  • Dimensions: 50 x 33 1/4 in. (127 x 84.5 cm.), Frame: 60 x 43 1/4 x 2 in. (152.4 x 109.9 x 5.1 cm.)
  • Medium: oil on canvas
  • Condition: No signs of past restoration; some colors fluoresce under UV light, likely hand of artist; all 4 edges lined with white tape; scattered areas of craquelure throughout; toning; scattered dust, dirt and accretions throughout; frame has separation at all 4 corners; 1 1/4 in. frame has crack at upper right inner corner and scattered marks, nicks, abrasions throughout.

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June 6, 2025 11:00 AM CDT
New Orleans, LA, US

Neal Auction Company

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