Press

The most recognizable painter in New Orleans is on a mission: to make sure the City doesn’t forget the artists who keep it funky.

“For me, this was all about that guy in the background,” says James Michalopoulos ’74. He’s paused in front of one of his own paintings, hung amid a sprawling and colorful retrospective of his work. The show occupies a large gallery on the second floor of the New Orleans Jazz Museum, which is set in an imposing former US Mint building constructed in the nineteenth century at the edge of the city’s French Quarter.

James Michalopoulos stated as we chatted the week before Hurricane Ida’s landfall. We were talking about his 35 years in New Orleans, but oh, how we can relate to this statement during hurricane recovery. A lot of our conversation was about the pandemic, the climate crisis, and how the two have affected the arts.

A FEW PRECARIOUSLY PLACED emerald green caskets seem an unlikely source of inspiration for an artist who paints the joyous revelry and movement of a city alive with character and characters. But artist James Michalopoulos has tapped into something that New Orleanians have known for a long time.

George Rodrigue is often referred to as Louisiana’s Henri Rousseau. If that is the case, James Michalopoulos must be Louisiana’s Vincent van Gogh, not just because his technique is similar. 

When you close your eyes and picture New Orleans in your imagination, there’s a good chance it looks like a painting by James Michalopoulos. 

While many of us sit at desks day after day, there are some who have jobs that take them to exciting places creating and performing while pursuing their dreams.

It's hard to miss the strikingly unconventional residence of artist James Michalopoulos. 

James Michalopoulos and his family thrive on the creative energy in their funky, livable, lovable home in Faubourg Marigny.

James Michalopoulos is seriously out of breath. It’s 5:30 p.m. on a Wednesday evening, and the painter is finally able to break away from the action at his Chartres Street studio for an interview.