Today we (Shirley, Rich & Tee Marvin) visited Bradley Sumrall and David Houston at the Ogden Museum. Roger Ogden in his initial collection donated to the Ogden Museum several Rockmore Presevation Hall Portraits of Jazz Musicians including the following links:
O.M. with Riva magnification study
We also saw a backstage Mardi Gras second series from 1987 called Urn Painter at the hands of destiny.
We did not see three works on this visit,
1972 Tomb of the Unknown Soldier – This was from his visit to Paris and is supposedly based on his chance meeting with Picasso – who Rockmore claimed hated him because he was jealous.
1974 – Homage to West 67th No. 2,
1991 – The spirit that wants to be free.
Bradley Sumrall who describes himself as a man of many hats, asst to the curator, registrar, and officially Collections Manager was also our conduit for the meeting with Chief Curator David Houston. David took time to look at all 250 pages of our Noel’s life in art books that we bring with us. He looked over his glasses at all of us at one point and said, “You have done your homework well, every artist should have someone like you!” That really made us all feel good. David was the first official curator to actually make time to meet with us and we were not sure what to expect. He made us feel we were on the right track.
Bradley then took us on an exquisite private tour of the museum on the way to visit two Rockmore pieces that were on display. We learned a lot about the Ogden Museum as well as Bradley, who it turns out was a recent “Quarterite” closely tied with helping out recently deceased “Ruthie the Duck Girl” in her later years. He has a true appreciation for Rockmore and all things from the French Quarter and will be an invaluable resource on the Noel Rockmore Trail. Thanks to Bradley and David for their time and attention.
Bradley's Ogden Museum blog http://omsablog.blogspot.com/
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