Art in the bedroom - painter Louis Delsarte creates mural for model home used to sell real estate to upscale African Americans in Atlanta, Georgia's Yorkshire community

American Visions, Feb-March, 1993 by Anthony C. Murphy

Painter Louis Delsarte, known for his illusionistic paintings of African Americans on the home, church and music scenes, has taken his impressions into the home with his latest project.

Assisted by Morris Brown College students Ricky Jackson and Donetha and Gerald Ball, Delsarte recently completed a mural for Morrison Homes' model home in Atlanta's Yorkshire community. Located in the nursery, the painting depicts the final scene of an African folktale, "The Child in the Silk-cotton Tree," and expresses the tale's moral, that neither time nor distance can break the bond of love between mother and child.

"Hoping to attract an African-American audience with an appreciation for art, we invited Delsarte to do the mural," explains Charlotte Roy, who is promoting the mural. The two-day assignment, a creative solution to the selling of upscale homes to African Americans, was somewhat unusual for Delsarte, who is on the faculty of Morris Brown. He's more accustomed to the sorts of projects in which he's now involved-two children's books, a February-march group showing at the Haggerty Museum in Milwaukee, and a silk screen project for Philadelphia's Brandywine Printmaking Workshop in July.