Rise Delmar Ochsner

Rise Delmar Ochsner died unexpectedly on February 22, 2025, capping a life that always defied expectation. Rise achieved things that were both extremely difficult and extremely rare in her own time, not to mention impossible to imagine replicating today. In hundreds of paintings, many of them much larger than life, she perfected a singular style, use of color, and lack of limits which left her in high demand as a portrait artist. Rise was never constrained by society’s conventions, glass ceilings, or personal tragedies. A doctor, artist, and devoted mother and grandmother, Rise cut a dramatic swath throughout her life and leaves behind loving family, many friends, and a legacy of enviable artistic accomplishments renowned across the country and particular in New Orleans, where she lived for many decades.

Born in the Bronx and educated at Bronx High School of Science and Columbia University, Rise set out with grit to defy barriers of her era. She was one of only a handful of women accepted under a ten percent quota to Tulane Medical School. Rise became a successful ophthalmologist with a thriving practice in New Orleans from the 1970s until her art career demanded her full attention. However, Rise never stopped practicing medicine and maintained positions in California and Louisiana until fully retiring shortly after the Covid pandemic.

It was as a medical resident that Rise met the love of her life, Mims “Minnie” Ochsner, a physician and a man with a warm heart and open spirit perfectly matched to Rise’s own. The two created a fabulous life in the French Quarter centered on a daughter, Skye Mims, to whom Rise remained devoted her entire life. Skye as a young girl and later as an adult was the subject of a significant number of Rise’s paintings, many of which hang in houses and institutions around the country including at the Ochsner Clinic. Mims tragically died in 1985, though his physical absence never diminished his centrality in Rise’s heart and life. Rise and Skye continued life in California for many years until Rise returned to New Orleans, a city intertwined with her family, soul, and artistic sensibility.

Never content to be idle, Rise added an enormously consequential career as an artist to her life as a doctor and mother. Coming from an artistic mother, Rise had always drawn and painted, but her career as an artist blossomed when she lived in the French Quarter in her early years as a practicing doctor. Rise spent her time in the company of the cutting edge of New Orleans artists, including George Dureau, a close friend who drew Rise in several life size portraits and helped her plan and hang her early exhibitions in New Orleans galleries.

Rise’s early work focused on her family, friends, and other individuals as well as still lifes, with an embrace of color and an insouciant fluidity of technique that she continually developed into a recognizable style highly sought after by collectors of Southern art. She painted commissioned portraits of Mick Jagger and Queen Noor and dozens of people in New Orleans, California, and elsewhere. Rise became highly sought after because of her ability to capture the essence of her subjects and to present it in unexpected settings and colors. Her vibrant paintings caught the attention of Robert and Margrit Mondavi, who hired Rise as the sole producer of portraits for the winners of the Robert Mondavi Culinary Award of Excellence. In this prominent role, Rise painted six portraits a year of some of the best and most beloved chefs in the country, including local favorites Paul Prudhomme, Leah Chase, Emeril Lagasse, and Susan Spicer, to name a few. Many of these portraits continue to hang in signature restaurants around the country and have been reprinted in books and other publications.

Not content to be a highly sought after portrait artist, Rise painted other subjects in a huge body of work on ever-bigger canvases. Enthralled by the landscape of the California central coast, Rise painted large format landscapes, wineries, and very popular studies of donkeys, chickens, dogs, cows, and other creatures. She even painted Carol Burnett’s cat. When her grandchildren Lark, Aura, and Birch arrived, Rise painted all of them at each stage of life. In the very last stages of her life, Rise was still working on a portrait of a friend’s daughter.

Rise loved poetry, music, Scrabble, the New York Times crossword puzzle, and a good meal and drinks with friends. She leaves behind a major legacy of art, love, and an example of a life well lived. Nobody who spent time with her will forget her.

Rise is survived by her daughter Skye Ochsner Margolies, son-in-law Dan Margolies, grandchildren Lark, Aura, and Birch Margolies, and loving nieces, nephews, cousins, and friends.

Memorial donations may be made to The New Orleans Center For Creative Arts (NOCCA), www.nocca.com, or a charitable arts organization of your choice.

To view and sign the online guest book, please visit www.lakelawnmetairie.com