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Lot 658
Description:
Noel Rockmore (American/New Orleans, 1928-1995), "George "Kid Sheik" Cola, Trumpeter (1908-1996)", oil on canvas, signed and dated "March 5, Œ63" upper left, titled on gallery card en verso, 36 in. x 24 in., framed.
- Provenance: Provenance: Collection of Alice Barry, New Orleans and Pass Christian, MS. Note: In 1962, Larry Borenstein commissioned Noel Rockmore to create a portrait series of the musicians who played at the recently opened Preservation Hall on St. Peter Street in the French Quarter. Dedicated to Dixie Land and Traditional New Orleans Jazz, Preservation Hall was managed by the young jazz enthusiasts, Allan and Sandra Jaffe, who drew from the large pool of talented local musicians as well as nationally recognized musicians for nightly performances. For the portrait series, Rockmore would find an advantageous location inside the club where he would paint the musicians as they played. During the daytime, Rockmore arranged for musicians to sit for portraits in his studio above Preservation Hall. These posed portraits tended to be larger and more formal. As an accomplished violinist, Rockmore inherently had a great respect and empathy for his subjects. He wrote about his experiences: The opportunity to depict these individuals - literally "living legends" - was also a challenge. The problem for me as a painter was to bring a musical past visually into contemporaneous terms. I had to recapture a past that was indeed magical as long as it was in the present. Working in his distinctive style, Rockmore painted the portraits of notable Preservation Hall musicians, often with instruments in hand or playing. Subjects included Jim Robinson, "Chicken" Henry, "Kid Sheik" Cola, "Fats" Houston, Willie and Percy Humphrey as well as numerous others associated with the music scene such as Jazz historian Bill Russell. The Preservation Hall portrait series proved to be successful for the artist: exhibitions of the paintings were held at the Greer Gallery in New York City and the images were published in a book by the Louisiana State University Press. Preservation Hall, over fifty years later, still thrives as a bastion of Traditional New Orleans Jazz and as the honored repository of Rockmore¹s important and memorable jazz musician series. Reference: Borenstein, Larry and Bill Russell, Preservation Hall Portraits: Paintings by Noel Rockmore, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1968; Feigenbaum, Gail, Noel Rockmore: Fantasies & Realities, exhibition catalogue, New Orleans Museum of Art, 1998; and "Noel Rockmore Bio-by Larry Borenstein, 1973", The Noel Rockmore Project, Right Way Wrong Way, www.rightwaywrongway.com
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March 28, 2010 11:00 AM CDT
New Orleans, LA, US
Neal Auction Company
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