Happy NewYear - Rockmore AP Article Out - Wash Post - SF Chron - ABC -Yahoo!
2.01 Rockmore by Painting
1961 Rockmore with Basin St. Swing in NOLA
2.02 60 Basin Street
1961 Basin St. Swing - Sheldon Swopes Museum Indiana

Rockmore AP Article is out- NOLA version leads with great photo to the left!
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Greetings!

 

Happy New Year, 2012 has arrived with the Rockmore AP Article Noel Rockmore: Picasso of New Orleans - Revisited by Cain Burdeau already in over 60 different Online News Outlets with up to 22 AP Photos and Picasso in the headline! The BEST news so far is The Washington Post Sunday Edition will run this Arts Feature in PRINT with their ~ 1 Million readers - #3 Sunday Paper in the World. Please let us know if it runs in your local paper Print edition and save us a copy. There is still plenty of time for Arts Feature editors to pick it up for next weekend too!

 

Major Online PickUps so far include: San Francisco ChronicleYahoo News - MSNBC - ABCNews - The Huffington Post. Interesting to see which AP images were featured as part of the layout in places like -The Colorado Herald - Denver Post - Albany Times - Korea Herald - Norfolk Daily - India Times (1 Photo-too funny) - Beaumont Enterprise - Click here to see the 60+ Worldwide pickups Page!

 

Who knows what will happen next with this kind of exposure but we are certainly ready! You can help by asking your local A&E Feature Editor to pick up this story while it is hot (hopefully for their print edition next week) but also online editions right now. You can leave comments, tweets or likes on any of these Web pages, the more the merrier because it really helps create buzz. Rich & Tee will be calling US Features editors direct as we drive down to Louisiana starting Monday to pick up Shirley Marvin and celebrate our daughter Macy's wedding to new son-in law Bodie Molliere in Prarieville, LA. We will then do everything it takes to make even more exciting things happen for Rockmore. We will be in LaGrange GA through both sides of MLK weekend for more events there before we return. Let us know when you are coming to the LaGrange Show to see 200 Rockmores in person.

 

To you new subscribers from all over the world, thank you so much or joining us! What we try and do in this Newsletter is give you the inside Rockmore scoop as it happens. We have been at this for 5 years with many of you and some of you are brand new. How fitting that on the first day of 2012 over 1 million folks will be exposed to Rockmore in Print. Our mission is to get Rockmore recognized as the Master American Artist that he is and have exhibitions in Major Museums. The press loves to play off his wild persona & personal issues and we try to keep the focus on his art which is his gift to the world. The visual art always wins the day as it has done in this article as well.

 

The best way to communicate with us is by email or you can reach us through The Noel Rockmore Facebook page which has many new members as well, welcome aboard Facebookers!

  

These Shirley Marvin Collection Rockmore works below will be available on eBay this Tuesday Jan 3rd at 9PM Eastern Time. This is something we have done the last year to fund the project and keep it going. It has led to New Rockmore collectors all over the world being able to experience the thrill of owning their own Rockmore. We appreciate their support and it will be interesting to see what happens with all the new attention. Special thanks to all of you who cheered us on and carried us through when times were very rough this past year and you know who you are!   

 

Sometimes, if you BELIEVE in something with all your heart like Shirley Marvin does in Noel Rockmore then Don Quixotic dreams do come true! What a GREAT way to start 2012 - The Year of Rockmore!

 

Happy New Year everyone!

 

Rich & Tee & Shirley Marvin  

The Noel Rockmore Project Team

www.Rockmore.org

  

PS. Want to see 200 Rockmore's in person - come to LaGrange GA all January! 

1.9 RichTeeShirleyFriday (21)
Click for Lagrange Mus. Picts
1.8  panel 2
Click for Rockmore Panel Film
2.9 cover
The LAM Catalog

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!

2.06 68.427 The Artist with his hat and flowers-SGM1.5
#427 The Artist with his hat and flowers

 2.07 68.421 Man Dreaming with Flowers-SGMNoel 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.

 

 

 

2.04 59.6.18.118 Negro Section backyards near Treme-SGM2
#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. 2.02 60 Basin StreetNoel 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.

 

  

 

 

 

2.09 70.10.667 Study of a Girl-SGM2
#667 Study of a Girl (Nude)
2.10 65 Antonio (2)
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.

2.11 69.498 Christie #2 Without Hat-SGM
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.

  

 

 

 

 

 

2.12 58.6.33 The Pool Players-SGM2
#33 The Pool Players

2.14 58 The Pool Game - Noel Davis - ERH - 2 2.13 58.6.33 The Pool Players-SGM2

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.

 

2.15 69.3.473 Carol Reading to Mandy-SGM2
#473 Carol Reading to Mandy

2.16 69 Mother and Child Reading~AMR 2.17 70.6 Clinic - mother & child & goldfish - New Orleans - AA

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.

 

2.18 78.825 Convulsion Study-SGM2
#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.2.19 79.4.13 - Brochure - Jonestown - Bryant Galleries NOLA - Back & Front 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.

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