New Orleans artist’s gigantic drawings are a knockout at CAC. But one will be painted over.

Drawings are usually humble. They can be quick, sketchy, disposable. A lot of times, drawings are the small preliminary plans for larger, more permanent paintings or sculpture.

But not Xavier University professor Ron Bechet’s drawings, which are being featured at New Orleans' Contemporary Arts Center, 900 Camp St., through November.

At age 69, Bechet has produced a suite of fierce, physical, charcoal drawings that are as big as bed sheets, as big as garage doors, and — in one case — as big as a billboard. The huge, gritty drawings are displayed in a raw state, held to the wall with pushpins. Or in one case, scrawled directly on the wall.

Over the past decades, Bechet has quietly become one of the most influential artists in New Orleans, helping generations of college students become art