"The one thing you should not do to an artist whose integrity you respect is insist on some therapy that is likely to impede their vision," Clendinen says. "That was his vision, and for him, the work was more important than himself. But at some point, he was persuaded to do the chemo and found he was able to do both. It didn't affect him as much as it did the first time around, and we were all glad of that."
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Art as affirmation
The project for which Monceaux considered giving his life had begun more than a decade ago as a series of pastels and linocuts. Over the past year, however, those early drawings evolved into a series of paintings celebrating African-American contributions to opera."In his portraits of black divas, Morgan saw an energy and creativity that the rest of the world had dismissed," says Leslie King-Hammond, graduate dean at the Maryland Institute College of Art and an authority on African-American artists. "His images are an affirmation of individuals whom he believes have made extraordinary contributions to the world."
Monceaux's image of Butterfly, for example, depicts soprano Camilla Williams in the title role. Williams, who sang Butterfly with the New York City Opera in 1946, went on to become the first African-American performer to win a contract with a major American opera company.
Monceaux already had captured Leontyne Price as Verdi's Aida and Shirley Verrett as Bizet's Carmen.
He had also portrayed less familiar 19th-century artists, such as soprano Sisseretta Jones, who sang for President Benjamin Harrison at the White House, and Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, who performed for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at London's Covent Garden.
All the images were based on meticulous historical research -- Monceaux spends at least a year combing archives and libraries for his material -- and many of the artists depicted, such as Jones and Greenfield, had been all-but-forgotten before the artist resurrected them in paint.
By last August, however, Monceaux could see he wasn't going to finish the series before starting chemotherapy in September. That's when he briefly considered "painting 'til I dropped" -- an option most people would dismiss out of hand.
But not Monceaux. To understand why, you need to know something about where the artist is coming from and how it shaped the person he is today.
A good childhood
Alexandria, La., where Monceaux grew up, bills itself as "a little bit of North Louisiana hospitality with a dash of South Louisiana good times." It's a fair description of the artist, too -- gracious, soft-spoken and, in his own words, "a little bit wild."As a child, Monceaux lived there with his maternal great-grandparents. His mother, a jazz singer who was often away on tour, and his father, a chef in Alexandria and New Orleans, separated when the boy was 8. His younger sister, Elaine, lived next door with other relatives.
Monceaux recalls his childhood as a happy one, nurtured by a loving family and church community. His great-grandfather, a cabinetmaker, was also a minister in a Baptist church, and family members attended services every Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday throughout Monceaux's youth.
"I thought I had a very good life," Monceaux says. "There were fields to run and play in and a close family setting. My cousins were my playmates."
After high school, Monceaux attended Bishop College in Dallas, a school founded by Baptist missionaries to train black ministers. Bishop offered courses in theology and music. Monceaux took both, with the goal of becoming a minister like his great-grandfather but also harboring a secret wish to sing opera.
Instead of continuing his theological studies at Morehouse College in Atlanta after Bishop, as many of his classmates did, Monceaux joined the Navy.
"At the time I didn't realize that was a big mistake," he says today. "Our country was at war, and I just felt it was the right thing to do."
Monceaux pauses for a moment. "But when you're young, you don't always make the right decisions," he says finally. "I didn't know a damn thing about war."