Noel Rockmore

Place: New York City

Born: 1928

Death: 1995

Biography:

Noel Rockmore was born Noel Montgomery Davis to his mother, Gladys Rockmore Davis, and his father, Floyd Davis, in New York City. Rockmore was an American painter, draughtsman, and sculptor. He claims to have produced more than 15,000 works of art in his lifetime. He is known for his portraits, his early rise to fame, his Preservation Hall portraits, and for changing his name at the height of the popularity he had developed in New York City.
Noel painted in a realistic and old masters style throughout his childhood and adolescence. He experimented with different artistic theories, techniques, and ideas in the New York art world of the 1950s.
As the abstract expressionist movement gained momentum, Rockmore left New York and went to New Orleans, where he changed his name from Noel Davis to Noel Rockmore, adopting the surname of his mother. He spent the next 20 years commuting between New Orleans and New York City while various dealers tried unsuccessfully to manage him and his often volatile career.
Noel Davis grew up in New York City, the son of a painter, Gladys Rockmore Davis, considered the ten-year-wonder of United States Art. His father, Floyd Davis was recognized in 1943 by Life Magazine as the No. 1 illustrator of that time. Noel's younger sister, Deborah Davis, was born in 1930.
Noel was fascinated by the violin and began lessons at the age of 5. He also learned piano and guitar. In 1935 both children contracted polio. and Noel turned to painting as an artistic outlet. By the age of 11 he had begun to produce serious artistic works.
Noel had difficulty accepting the discipline in traditional schools and at Juilliard, where he worked briefly trying to master the violin skills he had demonstrated as a child musical prodigy.
In the early 1940s, while his parents covered World War II as art correspondents for Life magazine, Noel and his sister attended the progressive Putney School in Vermont. Noel was known as a talented, but difficult student. He was graduated in 1947. He also attended the Art Student League of New York with Julian Levi.
In 1948, when Rockmore was 19, Joseph Hirshhorn became his first major patron. He was encouraged by Henry Francis Taylor, director at the Metropolitan Museum, as well as by Raphael Soyer, John Koch, and Yasuo Kuniyoshi. His first studio was in the Cooper Union Complex in New York City, where he painted the street people of the Bowery.
He painted animals from The Museum of Natural History. and in 1950 he acquired access to the backstage of the Ringling Brothers Circus. Coney Island, Fire Island, and Central Park. all of which provided stimulus and inspiration for his drawings and paintings. He did early works in the "Old Masters Style" that were favorably reviewed by Stewart Preston of The New York Times. Xavier Gonzalez, Jack Levine, and Fletcher Martin all encouraged Noel Davis to ignore the art fads of the time, including abstract expressionism, and persevere in his own unique direction.
On June 20, 1951, Noel Davis married Elizabeth Hunter in New York City. On their honeymoon in Valles, Mexico, his car hit a cow and was demolished. The newlyweds were uninjured, although the bride was upset when Noel insisted upon sketching the dying animal. Upon the couple's return to New York. they settled into the typical life of a young married couple, living in the "Des Artistes" complex. From 1951 to 1957 there were three children born of the marriage.
He began showing his works at the Harry Salpeter Gallery and received awards and recognitions that, according to Des Artiste fellow resident Stuart Davis put the Salpeter Gallery on the map. He did two Life Magazine commissions and was invited to join the National Academy of Design. He was in group exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum, Whitney Museum, Museum of Modern Art, and The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He won the Hallgarten Prize, the Tiffany Fellowship (twice: 1956 & 1963), and The Wallace Truman Prize.
In 1958, Joseph Hirshhorn purchased an additional eight Noel Davis paintings, bringing his total to 16 for the Hirshhorn Museum. He had a one-man show at the Salpeter Gallery in New York and the Butler Institute of American Art in Ohio. Later that year he moved to Brooklyn Heights as his marriage dissolved as well as his relationship with Harry Salpeter. Upon leaving his wife and children, he moved to Coney Island, and then Xavier Gonzalez arranged for him to obtain a studio in the house of New Orleans painter Paul Ninas, where, according to Davis, he could "dwell in creative obscurity".
While in New Orleans, Noel Davis decided to legally change his name to Noel Rockmore, adopting his mother's maiden name. This caused consternation from his patrons, his dealer and most notably, his mother. It was unheard of for a major recognized artist in so many museums to change his name at such a point in his career. He was banned from the Hirshhorn Museum when he was caught there changing his name from Davis to Rockmore on one of his works. He was also accused of defacing a major work at a museum in New York (possibly a Jackson Pollock).

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