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eBay Auction from the Shirley Marvin Collection
this Tuesday January 3rd at 9PM Eastern Time!
Click on large left images to read more about the Rockmore work!
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#427 The Artist with his hat and flowers |
 Noel Rockmore did an extra large 19x14 watercolor series when he was in Cleveland in 1968. Noel Rockmore's mother, Gladys Rockmore Davis, was famous for her portraits of flowers and Rockmore decided that he would use the flowers as a symbol of the artist gift to the world. This specific work is interesting because Rockmore depicts himself with a helmet versus the Tophat that he usually used.
This work was also selected for The Cahoon Exhibition in Cape Cod Massachusetts and comes with a Exhibition label on the back that recognizes the honor.
 | | #118 Negro Section near Treme |
This work is from Rockmore's time when he drew and sketched all the sights and sounds of New Orleans as he discovered them. Noel Rockmore loved going into the undesirable sections of a community like the Bowery in New York or Coney IslandBeach and sketching its people as he found them. Nobody did that in New Orleans before Noel Rockmore; going into Treme just did not make sense to most artists. Who would buy the work and what was the point of sketching folks in the Negro section of town.  Noel Rockmore was not most people however; he was color blind and simply saw himself as the documenter of the human condition as he found it. He would go on to create many masterpiece works from his visits to this area of New Orleans and this one is used in Basin St. Swing to the right. This work is SPECIAL because it is real, it is a part of history and it comes from the master American artist who dared to document the human condition of all people in a segregated New Orleans.
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#667 Study of a Girl (Nude) |
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Antonio in LaGrange |
Rockmore enjoyed painting beautiful young women for his entire career and in the mid 60s through the 80s he painted many nude. His mentor in New York was Leon Kroll known as the "Dean of the Nude." Rockmore certainly would follow in that vein and some of his nudes will one day be recognized as the finest of his time.
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Christine |
This was most likely a girl visiting Rockmore at the time when the work was created. We do not know if she was a model or a friend or both.
He did take the time to do the watercolor portion of this work and the detail of the face and head.
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#33 The Pool Players |
 
Rockmore was actually living in Coney Island as he began talking about changing his name from Noel Davis to Rockmore. Once he arrived in New Orleans in 1959 he officially changed his name to Rockmore. This RARE early work from the Coney Island Sketchbook has the signature Noel Davis Rockmore 58 which was during the end of his Noel Davis time period and shift to just Rockmore. For just a limited amount of signatures; he tried out Noel Davis Rockmore but within a month he would never use it again.Soon his signature would be just Rockmore. This of course was a cause of great concern to his mother, patrons, gallery owners and museums that had already collected Noel Davis.
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#473 Carol Reading to Mandy |
 
When Rockmore returned to San Francisco in 1969 he ended up in a relationship with Carol & her daughter Mandy. He enjoyed painting them and the whole idea of painting a mother & child theme. The intimate mother & child moments he captures leads you to believe he was more than just a casual observer but an active member of this family unit and led to a Mother & Child series.
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#825 Jonestown Convulsion Study |
On November 18, 1978, 909 men, women and children died in "revolutionary suicide" at Jim Jones' PeoplesTemple in Guyana. Within a month as the details continued to come out in the news, Noel Rockmore created a sketchbook with the vision of depicting the moment of the Jonestown suicide in a large triangle canvas. The frame was custom made by his friend, carpenter Jerry Ducote.
This is one of the 80 sketches that were blended into the completed work known as The Jonestown Triangle. This image is without doubt one of the most interesting and striking of all of the sketches. From the bloodshot eyes, the wrinkled brow, the collaged tongue to the bits of debris (vomit) on the tongue and neck; Rockmore has gone all out to get your attention. The most intriguing thing about this is that he is trying to put the viewer in the midst of this horrific death scene sketch of a mass suicide. | 
