Raymond Bowie, a self-taught Mardi Gras parade artist who for a half-century used vibrant color combinations and an innate sense of design to turn processions into mobile art exhibits, died at his Algiers home on Monday, the day after his 71st birthday.
He died of mesothelioma, said La Keisha Bowie, his daughter.
“He was the best of the best,” said Virginia Saussy, the Krewe of Muses’ float and theme chairwoman. “He knew how to paint a float so it brought out the essence of the art. He changed the way we did art and made it much better.”
A lifelong New Orleanian who graduated from L.B. Landry High School, Bowie started painting floats in 1976, when he walked into Kern Studios looking for work, said Chris Richier, Kern Studios’ production manager.
“He had talent, and he got to work with really good artists and developed into the best float painter in the history of New Orleans,” Richier said. “He was a true artist. Never cut corners on anything.”
In painting a float, “a lot of it is technique, a lot of it is attitude, a lot of it is style,” Richier said. “It’s not like canvas work. … He wanted to do it right; it had to be perfect. … He made sure the colors were right on everything he painted.”
An example of Bowie’s painstaking attention to detail was a multicolored arch he painted for the 2011 Hermes parade, said Henri Schindler, a longtime parade designer. “He worked on it for almost two weeks. It was fantastic.”
The process starts when the designer creates a watercolor image to serve as a model for painters to use on the floats. With Bowie, Schindler said, the finished product was “every bit as detailed as, and sometimes more than, the prototype.”
Muses started working with Bowie in 2003. It was a collaborative process, Saussy said. “You didn’t just present him with art. You worked with him on that art. That hadn’t been the way we had worked before. … He knew how to look at a piece of paper and visualize it on a float.”
Bowie started working with Schindler for the Mistick Krewe of Comus’ processions in the mid-1980s. As Bowie’s career progressed and his reputation grew, he painted the parades of Rex, Orpheus, Endymion and Muses, turning out a float a week.
Sharon and Raymond Bowie in their backyard during a party for the NOMTOC parade on March 2, 2019. They rarely go to the parade a few blocks from the house, but enjoy cooking for friends and family each year.
“Float painters get paid by the float,” Schindler said. “A lot of them are in a hurry to get on to the next float. … So many people who work on these projects are killing time so they can do ‘real art.’ This was his art.”
“He loved painting. Period,” his daughter said. When he would talk about painting floats, he would talk about colors and the way they came to life and the joy they brought to people and the excitement of it. He did it so effortlessly. He could look at something and know where to put it.”
As Bowie worked, he was always smiling, said Dr. Stephen Hales, the Rex organization’s historian emeritus.
“I can’t remember Raymond without his beatific smile as he painted,” he said. “He would pull up his battered rolling chair and his buckets of paint and paint beautiful scenes on the sides of floats. … When he lifted his brush, he lifted it with a smile and a passion.”
Hales stuck with Bowie after he suffered strokes, which robbed him of his ability to paint. Recovery was rough, Hales said, as Bowie struggled, first by drawing in sketchbooks, then by painting on his garage wall.
“He came back,” Hales said, “and created new, beautiful works of art.”
Raymond Bowie and Jay Jackson discuss the final floats they need to paint for the 2019 carnival season at Kern Studios on February 14, 2019.
Barry Kern, CEO of Kern Studios and Mardi Gras World, called Bowie “the ultimate perfectionist and professional.”
I’ve never met anyone who spent more time or cared more,” Kern said. “He gave everything when it came to doing what he did.”
His first marriage, to Geraldine Reed, ended in divorce.
She survives him, as do his wife, Sharon Bowie; two sons, Raymond Bowie Jr. and Michael Bowie; three daughters, La Toya Bowie, La Keisha Bowie and Amber Bowie; two stepsons, Wayne Jo Guidry and Robert Guidry; a stepdaughter, Niesha Townsend, a sister, Yvette Brown; and 12 grandchildren.
A Mass will be said May 23 at 11:30 a.m. at All Saints Catholic Church, 1343 Teche St. in Algiers.
Davis Mortuary Service is in charge of arrangements.
Raymond Bowie painting floats at the Rex Den for Mardi Gras 2018 in the summer heat on August 19, 2017.