Description:

Noel Rockmore (American/New Orleans, 1928-1995), "Silver Anniversary: The Artist's Parents (Gladys Rockmore and Floyd Davis)", oil on canvas, signed, titled, dated "Feb. '65" and inscribed "N.Y." lower left, inscribed "Rock W. 67th St." and "The Shirley Marvin Collection" label with artist, title and date en verso, 50 in. x 48 in., framed; accompanied by Creative Obscurity: The Genius of Noel Rockmore. exhibition catalogue LaGrange Art Museum Provenance: The Shirley Marvin Collection. Exh.: "Creative Obscurity, The Noel Rockmore", LaGrange Art Museum, LaGrange, GA, 2012 and illustrated on catalogue cover. Note: A theme that recurs throughout Noel Rockmore’s career is his dedication to portraiture. He painted family, friends, musicians, artists, and strangers. Another frequent element in Rockmore’s work is that of dream and fantasy. The current lot, which depicts the artist’s mother and father, sensitively combines both of these themes - the realistic and sympathetic portraits of his parents are fantastically interwoven with his mother floating in a Chagall-like manner over his father. Rockmore’s parents, with whom he was very close and yet had a combative and competitive relationship, each passed away soon after this portrait was completed; Floyd Davis died in 1966 and Gladys Rockmore Davis in 1967. While other portraits from 1965 depict his parents sitting or standing next to each other in an interior setting, the current lot, with its dark background, floating sitter, and white bouquet of flowers, seems almost funereal in nature. It is interesting to speculate whether the artist knew of his parents’ declining health or predicted that he would soon lose them. Rockmore himself admitted he had a preoccupation with death, stating, “I am to a certain extent one of those artists who chronicles decay…I would say the spectre, the inevitability of death excites me. It is somehow the promise behind the peculiar process we insist upon calling life.”

  • Condition: All lots are sold “As is” and “Where is”. Neal Auction provides condition reports on items with a low estimate over $500 as a courtesy to aid in your bidding decision. No statement regarding age, condition, kind, value, or quality of a lot, whether made orally at the auction or at any other time, or in writing in this catalogue or elsewhere, shall be construed to be an express or implied warranty, representation, or assumption of liability. Completed condition reports are posted as an additional image with the lot. Neal Auction does not give refunds.

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April 23, 2017 11:00 AM CDT
New Orleans, LA, US

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