Painting till the end . . .

Byron remained pretty active into his early 90s, but began to fade in his final years. He died several months before his 95th birthday. Even so—and despite a succession of mini-strokes (TIAs) affecting his speech—he was painting almost daily until the week before he died. The painting of San Francisco displayed here was done during his final year; Cassis and Preservation Hall were painted shortly before that. Below are also works he painted when he was 93 and 94.

The last time he went to New Orleans (to attend his sister’s funeral), he asked to drive by all of the houses in which he lived in New Orleans. He made sketches of each one, and then made paintings of some back in Baton Rou9ge. He spent much of his childhood here, in this house at 2623 Jefferson Ave. His grandparents and a great-grandmother lived in the apartment downstairs; he and his family lived in the other upstairs. A single-family home now, there were two entrances back in the 1920s and 30s.