Artist known for impressionistic paintings of Creole life dies

At 11 minutes to noon on Decem­ber 29, 2014, Elisabeth Marie Villeré Tidmore ascended to the greatest soiree imaginable – the eternal one.

Known as “LouLou” to her friends, she radiated a charm to all, and a grace which shall never be forgotten. A descendent of one of the founding families of New Orleans and Louisiana’s first native governor Jacques Phillippe Villeré, she nonetheless had a singular ability to make anyone feel noble and special, regardless of their circumstances.

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A professional artist, she began her career working for the Times-Picayune’s advertising department and later served as Art Director for a major department store chain-upon completing her studies at USL and Tulane. In her freelance work, she designed everything truth behind payday loans from doubloons to direct mail pieces. But, her renown came from her pen and ink ‘jazz scenes’ of New Orleans second lines and her im­pressionistic paintings of the Creole life of this city.

Exploding onto the local art consciousness with a one-man show in 1973 at Le Petit Theatre, LouLou’s jazz scenes were described as “sensitive and colorful with the players themselves” displaying a unique personality in each composition. Her paintings ended up being hung in galleries all over the city and all over the world, with a piece most recently up for auction at Sotheby’s in London.

Besides her tenure with the New Orleans Art Association, her charity work is too numerous to mention. From the New Orleans Opera Guild to the Grass Roots Garden Club, Lou­Lou tirelessly gave of her time and efforts.

The daughter of Plauché and Elisabeth Wolfe Villeré, she is survived by her husband David Borden Tidmore and her son Christopher, as well as siblings Plauché, Maurice, Lucie, and Denise.

In lieu of flowers, please make all donations to the Bicentennial reenactment of the Battle of New Orleans on Jan 9, 10 & 11, a cause close to her heart, by going online to www.LAlivinghistory.org/give.

This article originally published in the January 5, 2105 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.