Childhood musical prodigy, Noel Rockmore, discovered his ultimate calling as a painter, after an early bout of polio made him delve deeper into darker, more macabre inspiration.  His subjects had wide range, including denizens of Greenwich Village and the Bowery, Coney Island, Jerusalem, shipyards and cemeteries and above all, the jazz musicians, surreal architecture and rituals of life and death in the New Orleans French Quarter. His biographer described him as a “compulsive draftsman”.  He often chose painting and smoking over mundane tasks such as sleeping and eating. Noel defined obsession and artistic possession, producing over 10,000 works in his lifetime.