The Genius of Noel Rockmore?????

Genius?  Maybe Not. Maybe he was only so so.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noel_Rockmore

More on Noel Rockmore in the link below.
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2011/dec/28/noel-rockmore-picasso-of-new-orleans-revisited/?print&page=all
Back in 1965 and 1966 I used to see Larry Borenstein sitting in his gallery on Royal Street and the walls were covered with paintings of local jazz musicians done by Noel Rockmore.
You can read about Larry Borenstein in the link below.
http://www.rightwaywrongway.com/index.php?name=Sections&req=viewarticle&artid=65&page=1

If I remember correctly the tourists loved to buy the paintings of jazz musicians done by Rockmore. Borenstein had a good thing going with selling this splashy commerical art.
Some of these paintings are still on the walls of Preservation Hall in New Orleans.

One or two paintings reminded me of the San Francisco art gallery that sold the pictures of the little girls and boys with big eyes crying. In the sense that they were done expressly for the tourist trade.
 In 1969 there was a gallery in North Beach in San Fran that sold Walter Keane paintings and nothing else. Read in the article below that it turned out his wife Margaret did most (if not all)of the paintings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Keane

I see an effort is underway to try and promote Rockmore. I don't think they will get very far. Only 646 people have looked at the video shown above.

Read my posts about Walter Anderson of Ocean Springs, Mississippi to see what a real genius was doing at the same time. Click on the name Walter Anderson in the Label box below.