A Father-Son Duo and the Official State Painting of Louisiana

Louisiana is no stranger to the arts. From jazz music to George Rodrigue’s Blue Dog paintings to the stories of William Joyce, the state has been the launching point of several artists and styles that have gone on to achieve worldwide fame while remaining inextricably linked to their home. With such an extensive artistic legacy, it is no wonder that Louisiana would eventually adopt an official state painting, a signed print of which is now housed within the History Center’s collection. This painting, titled simply “Louisiana,” is a collaboration between father and son, Johnny Oats Bell and Johnny Floyd Bell.

Johnny Oats Bell was born in Massachusetts on May 14, 1916, and was raised in Michigan. He served in the South Pacific during World War II, becoming the “artist in residence” for his company. In 1943, after being discharged from the military, he married Margaret Thompson, and the couple settled first in Mississippi, then in Louisiana in 1955. In both of their homes, Johnny Oats worked as a graphic and mural artist, with his own sign company. The Bells had three children together, their eldest being Johnny Floyd Bell.

Born in 1944, Johnny Floyd Bell began working in his father’s sign shop as soon as he was old enough to help out. He quickly proved to be every bit the artist that his father was. Though he experimented with various styles and techniques, he always considered himself a mural and graphic artist first and foremost, like his father before him. Indeed, he emulated his father so well that at one point, Johnny Oats Bell mistook his son’s work as his own, and was left puzzled by the fact that he could not remember painting it.

Eventually, father and son decided to combine their talents to pay tribute to their beloved home in the form of an oil painting. Completed in 1985, after 10 years of collaborative effort, “Louisiana” managed to incorporate all of Louisiana’s state symbols that existed at the time, its history as an agricultural and transportational giant, and its current designation as a “Sportsman’s Paradise,” all into one stunning work of art. Johnny Oats and Johnny Floyd’s styles blended perfectly, so much so that they decided to sign the painting with one “Johnny Bell” signature, with the center containing the father’s “O” and the son’s “F” nestled within it.

“Louisiana” would eventually catch the attention of Louisiana lawmakers, and on June 29, 1995, Governor Edwin W. Edwards signed Act 981, designating “Louisiana” as the official state painting (though the copyright privileges would remain with the artists). Johnny Floyd Bell would go on to be appointed as “Louisiana’s Artist Laureate” by Governor Mike Foster in 1997, a title he held until 2009. Today, the original “Louisiana” hangs at the State Capital in Baton Rouge in a gilded frame. The History Center’s print of “Louisiana,” which was donated earlier this year by Bossier City resident Bill Swygart, is in a plainer wooden frame, but it is no less of a treasure. It stands not just as a testament of the Bells’ incredible craftsmanship and synergism, but as a reminder of the unique beauty and history of Louisiana.

The Bossier Parish Library History Center’s unique collection of objects exists because of donors who have items representing local and regional history and who want to see those items preserved and accessible to visitors and researchers. To see our rotating displays or to research other items in our collection, come visit us at 7204 Hutchison Drive, Bossier City, LA. We are open M-Th 9-8, Fri 9-6, and Sat 9-5. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org

For other fun facts, photos, and videos, be sure to visit the History and Genealogy Resources page at Bossierlibrary.org or follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB and check out our blog http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/.

Images: 

• “Louisiana,” by Johnny Oats Bell and Johnny Floyd Bell, designated as the official state painting in 1995 by Governor Edwin Edwards.   2025.006.001  
• Johnny O. Bell and Johnny Floyd Bell pictured with their painting, "Louisiana"                                  Southwest Daily News Mar 04, 1999 

Article by: Jaylie Rester

Andres Sanchez-Flores – A Hidden Gem of an Artist and a Lost Gem of a Masterpiece

 It’s the end of September, but the middle of Hispanic -American Heritage Month (September 15-October 15), making it the perfect time to celebrate one of the Shreveport-Bossier area’s hidden gems Andres Sanchez-Flores. This longtime resident of Shreveport was an internationally known mural artist and assistant/protégé to the renowned Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Following his move from Mexico to the Shreveport-Bossier area, his art took a back seat to earning a living and raising a family. He did get a chance to share his masterful artistic talents when he painted a 35-foot-long, 10-foot-high mural of Bossier Parish history in the lobby of the National Bank of Bossier that once anchored Bossier City’s downtown.

Sanchez-Flores was born in 1905 in Jalisco, Guadalajara, Mexico. As a child he dreamed of being an artist, but the Mexican school system’s vocational sorting of students pointed him to higher education in chemistry. It didn’t take long after finishing college for chemistry to lead him back to art. He was sent on an expedition to find and study the chemical compositions of murals in ancient Mayan ruins. This set in him a desire to continue to study the Maya civilization, which led him to Michigan. It was in Michigan in 1920 that he met Diego Rivera. Because Sanchez-Flores was a Spanish speaker and shared Rivera’s interest in Mayan culture, Rivera invited him to be a part of his team that was working on murals depicting industrial might in Detroit. Sanchez-Flores became Rivera’s right-hand man, while learning all that he could about painting murals.

Sanchez-Flores came to Shreveport in 1952. His wife Ella was from Texas. They lived in Mexico for 20 years on Frida Kahlo’s family’s property, but his wife was more and more homesick for the U.S. Plus, he wanted his children to get a quality education in the States. His two children, Rocio and Erwin, both graduated from Louisiana Tech. To support their education, once in the states he almost entirely had stopped painting, and worked in engine repair until retirement. The ambitious mural in Bossier was an exception.

In a story about the mural, “The Bossier Tribune” assured readers that every effort will be made to make the mural not only typical of this region but historically correct. This claim is supported by his daughter, who described her father as a prodigious researcher. The effort to research a likeness of General Pierre Jean Baptiste Evariste Bossier of Natchitoches, after whom the parish is named, warranted an entire article in the “Bossier Banner-Progress” titled: “Audubon is Responsible for Likeness of General Bossier in Historical Mural.” As a result of Sanchez-Flores’ research, the State Library of Louisiana turned up the information that the famous painter John James Audubon, before he gained his fame as a naturalist, had painted portraits of people to make a few dollars, including General Pierre Bossier!

Sanchez-Flores was assisted with the mural by state artist laureate Amos Lee Armstrong. The mural spanned over 400 years of Bossier history, beginning with Hernando DeSoto’s expedition to the area, shown inhabited by tribes of the Caddo Indian confederation. The Caddo Indians, whom Sanchez-Flores connected culturally to the Mayans, was a special research interest of his. The mural showed many details of Caddo Indian village life, such as beehive-shaped mud and thatch houses several stories high, the lush natural resources of the area like majestic oaks on banks of bayous, cypress trees and cypress knees at the water’s edge, and even plants like wild iris and water lilies. Also shown were waterfowl such as duck and heron. On the land were the plentiful game of rabbit and deer plus wildcats, cougars, and bear.

The mural also depicts the arrival of French explorers, who traded with Caddo. The fur trapper and Caddo interpreter Larkin Edwards is shown along with the arrival of overland wagon trains, the Red River log jam and its clearing, and steamboats. The arrival of the American period with the Louisiana Purchase is shown in such minute detail as the lowering of the French flag and the raising of the American flag, along with illustrations of the Freeman and Custis Expedition sent by President Jefferson to survey the purchase. The mural also shows pecan groves, oil wells and refineries, sawmills and pulp factories, and the cultivation and raising of cotton, corn and livestock. On the home front, houses, circuit riders, churches, and schools appear. The Shed Road is depicted, paralleled by different eras of travel, such as the steam locomotive followed by the diesel streamliner, covered wagons and automobiles, and combustion engine airplanes followed by jets.

As Sanchez-Flores himself said, “There is not much mural work here: Shreveport is a young town, and consequently hasn’t developed a craving for art. It will in time, because it’s a process of maturing.” Perhaps that’s what the National Bank of Bossier had in mind when it commissioned such an impressive work of art that depicted hundreds of years of history, to make a point about Bossier City and Bossier Parish growing and maturing. In a feature article in the October 1955 “Shreveport Magazine” the National Bank proclaimed that all residents of the region would want to “share in this pageant of progress” as related by “two outstanding artists.” Despite this popular sentiment, the mural was destroyed during remodeling sometime prior to 1975.

Upon Sanchez-Flores’ retirement, his son Erwin, who spent time in Australia for his work in the oil industry, arranged for him to give some university lectures there. He ended up not only doing that but getting a commission for a gigantic mural at the Western Australian Institute of Technology in Perth. Press releases out of Australia in 1975 and picked up by local papers showed Shreveport-Bossier the master painter who had been ‘hidden’ in their midst. He could have gotten more commissions in Australia, but after a few months chose to come home to Shreveport. He said he certainly wouldn’t turn down commissions back in north Louisiana, though. That might have come true, as shown by a commission for church mural in Minden that he was to paint assisted by his daughter, but sadly he received a sudden diagnosis of cancer, and passed away not long after.

Come visit us at the History Center to see our exhibits that depict the history that had been shown in Sanchez-Flores’ Bossier mural. If you have any information, stories, or photos about Sanchez-Flores, the National Bank building, its mural or other Bossier Parish stories of Hispanic heritage, we would love to add to the History Center’s collection and knowledge. We are open M-Th 9-8, Fri 9-6, and Sat 9-5. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org

Images:

• Mural of 400 years of Bossier Parish history by Andres Sanchez-Flores shown in-progress in 1955 in the National Bank of Bossier. Photo courtesy of Dr. Rocio Arthur.
• Color postcard of interior of the National Bank of Bossier with mural of Bossier City history.  History Center collection (courtesy of Billy Thorn).

For other fun facts, photos, and videos, be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, @bplhistorycenter on TikTok, and check out our blog http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/.