Michalopoulos

This is a lovely 3-story gallery! James Michalopoulos is an extremely talented artist, and his works are vibrant, engaging, and extremely tactile! We visited during his cow phase and many of his canvases were of cows. He is renowned for his paintings of regional architecture and famous musicians and for designing numerous NOLA Jazz Fest posters and artwork. Many of his architectural pieces seem to defy gravity, as he departs from traditional renderings by painting the structures in arches for example. He utilizes exaggerated viewpoints and skewed perspectives so beautifully! His approach is whimsical, fun, and very engaging! For his paintings, he uses palette knives primarily, and this method results in such a dense, tactile quality to the paint, it is almost as if the paint is ice cream-like, and the viewer could just take a spoon to get the paint off the canvas and take a bite! This is my favorite approach to painting, and it takes quite the commitment by the artist to achieve this result! This lovely, accurate description from his bio sums it up: "His portraits of shotgun houses and Creole cottages, captured in layer upon layer of thick impasto paint, brimmed with color and energy and captured the essence of his subject."Quite the visionary and entrepreneur, Michalopoulos owns a house in the Burgundy region, started and stewards a foundation devoted to providing affordable spaces in NOLA in which artists can create, and live. In the 90s he opened a rum distillery, Celebration Distillation, the first craft rum distillery in the nation in over a century. Celebration features the "Old Orleans" label, and sadly, it suffered a fire, and is closed until further notice. Amazingly, he is primarily self-taught artistically, although he took a couple of art classes in NOLA. This gallery is spacious, it's 3 stories, and not pretentious at all. The staff are friendly, and you may engage with the art as long as you would like during their business hours.

Incredibly impressed with the quality of the staff. We own a number of his Jazz Fest Remarque posters.Been 21 years since I've been to his gallery. Last time they had the original Mahalia Jackson painting in the opening room.We had a lot of fun reminiscing, and we bought his bookalopoulos. Had to catch a flight and needed to have it shipped.A couple of weeks later...no book. When my wife reached out they apologized profusely. It's Mardi Gras... and the order slipped through the cracks.Next week.... bookalopoulos shows up with a massive signature. Please check out the photo below. Damn ... another reason why I love this town!

Um. Michalopolous is an institution. How does this spot not have more reviews?We stopped in here during a "Quarter day" and we really just had a plan to look around, since we are both fans of Michalopoulos' work. This is a really gorgeous gallery- lots of wide open space with wall after wall of beautiful art that has a New Orleans flair. Upstairs is lovely with two big rooms of art, as well has as a nice selection of prints. We hadn't planned on making any purchases, but my friend came across a print that he had wanted for a while. The gallery manager John, was beyond helpful in helping him find what he wanted and my friend left with a gorgeous new Michalopoulos print!I love Michalopoulos' paintings of New Orleans houses, and considering how detailed the art is, it really is well priced. If you are looking for something a little different, that will remind you of the Crescent City, you should start here.

It was in the late 1980s when I first saw Jame Michalopoulos' work. It was at the Louisiana Pizza Kitchen in that little triangulated sliver of Bayou St. John where Desoto Street meets Esplanade (now the CC's coffee house) during dinner with a rowdy group of 20-somethings when I was in between under- and graduate schools. Anyway, it was a great night drunken night and I couldn't tell you today the names of the people I was with, but I always remembered the surreal paintings of familiar houses by some guy named Michalopoulos that surrounded the dining room. The paintings made an impression on me, and I'd have bought one if I had an extra $400 handy that night. Fast forward to 2012 and I met James for a work related project and re-familiarized myself with his work and his gallery. His journey as an artist and businessman had taken a very successful path since that time I first saw his paintings at LPK. He's a very interesting guy whose passion for his art and the city of New Orleans is undiminished after all these years.The gallery on Bienville Street is a must-visit for anyone who'd like to capture and bring home a piece of the spirit of the city, but be prepared to pay a lot more than the 1980s $400/painting price. Even if you can't bring one home, it's still great to see James' vision and passion transferred to canvas by way of gobs of oil paint. The shapes ("dancing" houses) and lighting he captures in his work are captivating. I drop in whenever I get to the Quarter and the gallery is always changing, as James is quite prolific in his work. While he's known for his NOLA home pictures, his figurative work, landscapes and sculptures are inspiring as well and are not to be missed.

Top notch, worth the investment. I get homesick when I visit the art gallery. I have most of his canvas work from Jazz Fest.

Michalopolous is a great local artist in New Orleans. He has another gallery in San Francisco but his work, that I'm aware of, is born in New Orleans and is one the best art works I've ever seen.