They finally attracted the interest of a museum, albeit a small one. The LaGrange Art Museum, located in LaGrange, Georgia, committed to an exhibition of Rockmore’s work in 2011. The conservative Southern city of about 28,000 seemed an unlikely venue for an artist who wasn’t afraid to paint pictures of his father naked and well-endowed teenage girls, but Rich and Tee saw it as an ideal starting point.
“When people know Rockmore’s name like they know Picasso’s name, that’s when we’ve done our job,” Tee says.

At the end, Rockmore could no longer lift his arm to paint. His organs failed and sores covered his body. His skin turned black. Terrified of doctors and hospitals, he waited until it was too late to go for help. He took a cab to a hospital in suburban Kenner, and as the driver was dropping him off at the emergency-room entrance, the man told the admitting nurse that he thought Rockmore was a street person.

“I am not a street person,” said Rockmore. “I am a great artist.”

These were the last words anybody recalls him speaking.

“Oh yes,” Rita Posselt says, “and Noel never wavered. He used to talk to me about it. ‘Someday when I’m gone,’ he’d say, ‘they will realize that. Somebody will realize it.’”