SIMON SAYS New Orleans artist Simon’s passion for the city is palette-able
By Robert Witkowski
OUI SPEAK FRENCH Beginning a career as a chef in the classic French tradition, Simon (pronounced See-moan) came to America at age 37, after a divorce. “I got divorced on Tuesday and I was in New York by Saturday. I was married for five years and it should’ve ended two years earlier, but we had a business.” He was a chef in Florida in 1981 where he met then-manager, now-wife, Maria, originally from Mid-City. The couple came to visit Maria’s family and experience Mardi Gras in 1994 and it was love at first sight—he effectively “never left.” He found work at Bush Antiques in Metairie, repairing furniture, painting signs in his downtime out of scrap wood to promote food he cooked at Johnny’s Bar and Grill. To his surprise, the beer-drinking customers wanted to buy his signs, not the food. Without any formal art training, Simon unceremoniously ended his culinary career to create his profitably popular signs full time. Maria supported his career change “because the money was good.” His first studio was on Constantinople Street by Prytania Street, until they moved to the corner of Jackson and Magazine Streets, where their art and antique businesses adjoin. “We compliment each other, but the antiques is not me.” The first painting he sold was Blue Lady I for Ellen Bush, now displayed in this courtyard gallery. “She just gave it back to me because she is moving out of town and wanted me to have it.” In 2010, WGNO commissioned his work to dress their News With a Twist studio, and is still the colorful backdrop on New Orleans Music Playlist. The TV exposure soon had customers clamoring for his art ever since. The onset of social media has only intensified the demand. “I need to go slow with Instagram posts because when a new painting goes up, it gets sold in five minutes. It’s unbelievable.” Now 73, he painstakingly paints by hand signs averaging around $400 each, based on size and, sometimes, word count. “I’ve sold over 15,000 paintings here, around 1,000 per year,” Simon says. “They sell as quickly as I paint them. I can’t keep up. There’s no time. Especially tourists—I tell them, ‘Keep it simple; not too long.’” To assist in the workload, he relies on “Liz, who has helped me now for eight years. She is from Georgia, but married to a French guy who lives here.”
24
Best of the Big Easy | Where Y'at Magazine
MATHILDE CAMUS
Born in the seaside resort town of Cannes, France in 1951, Simon Hardeveld—widely known throughout New Orleans simply as Simon—has literally made his eye-catching mark on New Orleans.
