Michael Graham Willmon was a fine artist and art instructor from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. WIllmon spent his formative years in New Jersey, Venezuela, and Florida. He returned to Louisiana to study art at Tulane University where he was awarded a fellowship and earned his B.F.A. and M.F.A. degrees. Initially in printmaking, Willmon eventually found his calling as a gifted painter. His notable early paintings included oversized still-lifes but with time he became more figurative and the scale of his work got smaller. His own unique and witty style emerged which often featured skeletons saturated in oranges and reds against the backdrop of the city he loved and resided in for 50 years.

Willmon began teaching art in 1974. For four decades he influenced countless students in New Orleans who held him in the highest esteem for his depth and breadth of knowledge and his generosity of spirit.