Growing up in NYC, Louis Delsarte was surrounded by by music (jazz, opera, musicals, the Blues) along with being witness to the discourse between his parents and many notable figures of the Harlem Renaissance, like Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Lena Horne. By a very young age, he was enrolled in art classes at the Brooklyn Museum.  He also spent time at Greenwood Forest Farm.  Known as "the Colony,"  it became a hot spot among affluent African Americans. Some of the most well-known figures of New York's African American arts community lived or vacationed at the Colony, including Langston Hughes. 

Delsarte went on to earn a BFA from Pratt Institute in 1967, and he initially found fame as a muralist in NYC. He moved to the West coast where he lived in Laguna Beach, CA and then Arizona where he received an MFA from the University of Arizona in 1977. He later joined the faculty at Morehouse College in Atlanta (2003–2020), having previously taught at Morris Brown College, Spelman College, and Howard University.

Delsarte took the music, the sunny West coast optimism, and the artful bohemian chaos of NYC, and distilled all of them into his art, an “illusionist” figurative expressionism, where he created intentionally flattened colorful compositions full of spontaneous energy, in paintings, prints, and large-scale murals.  His best-known mural, Transitions, was installed in 2001 in the Church Avenue subway station in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn. This 20-foot mural, made of brightly colored shards of glass, depicts sidewalk strollers, churchgoers, and costumed men and women celebrating the West Indian American Day Parade.

Another mural titled, The Spirit of Harlem depicts figures from the Harlem Renaissance and was commissioned by North Fork Bank in 2005 for its branch at West 125th Street, across from the Apollo Theater. Bricked over in 2017, this mural was restored after community protest.   In 2010, Delsarte also completed a 125-foot Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Mural located at Peace Plaza in Atlanta.

Delsarte’s work is on view in the exhibition,
Black Zeitgeist: Atlanta, the Visual Arts, and the National Black Arts Festival, now through December 14, 2025 at the Hammonds House Museum in Georgia.

Selected Exhibitions

LOUIS DELSARTE; Bodley Gallery, NY, 1980

New Visions: Paintings and Drawings by LOUIS DELSARTE; Gallery 62, National Urban League, NY, 1983

The Ninth Annual Atlanta Life National Art Competition and Exhibition; Atlanta Life Insurance Co., 1989 (purchase award)

LOUIS DELSARTE: No Place Like Home; Gallery 62, National Urban League, NY, 1991

Contemporary Romanticism; The African American Museum in Philadelphia, 2001

Successions: Prints by African-American Artists from the Jean and Robert Steele Collection; University of Maryland Art Gallery, 2002

Tradition Redefined: The Larry and Brenda Thompson Collection of African American Art; David C. Driskell Center, University of Maryland, 2009

Spirit Chasing Rainbows: The Art of LOUIS DELSARTE; Hammonds House Museum, Atlanta, GA, 2010