Displaying items by tag: selftaught art

Thornton Dial, the self-taught Alabama artist whose best-known work — dense, chaotic wall reliefs that exist somewhere between painting and sculpture — recently entered the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is moving into the Manhattan gallery ecosphere. Mr. Dial, 87, will be represented by the Marianne Boesky Gallery, whose roster includes artists like Frank Stella, the painter Barnaby Furnas and the director John Waters.

Jean Dubuffet believed that art by self-taught and so-called outsider artists possessed an authenticity and creative imagination that was missing from professional art and from modern life in general. He called the work he favored “Art Brut,” collected it in great quantities and donated his accumulation of 4,000 examples to the city of Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1971.

In the almost 70 years since the term was first coined, “outsider art” — a somewhat dismissive designation for the work of self-taught artists — has been steadily finding its way inside the mainstream art world. These days, it is no longer unusual to see pieces by artists with no formal training displayed in even the most prestigious venues; just the past two years have seen such works included in exhibitions mounted by the Venice Biennale, the Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum, among others.

For much of the past half-century, though, the significance of self-taught art was largely recognized only by a few enthusiasts.

The Katonah Art Museum opened a unique exhibit from the art collection of the William Louis-Dreyfus Foundation this past Saturday featuring five self-taught artists: James Castle, Thornton Dial, Nellie Mae Rowe, Bill Traylor, and Willie Young.

They all come from diverse backgrounds, but share artistic integrity.

Self-taught artist, Purvis Young, who died in 2010 at the age of 67, never graduated high school and spent time in prison. But those setbacks didn't prevent him from achieving much deserved art world recognition.

In 1999, the contents of the Miami-based artist's entire studio, which included up to 3,000 pieces, were snapped up by mega collectors, the Rubbells, according to the New York Times.

A stunning presentation of American folk art made primarily in rural areas of New England, the Midwest, and the South between 1800 and 1925 opened at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City March 28. "A Shared Legacy: Folk Art in America" celebrates art rooted in personal and cultural identity and made by self-taught or minimally trained artists and artisans. Drawn from the prestigious collection of Barbara L. Gordon, "A Shared Legacy" highlights 63 outstanding examples of American folk art. Vivid portraits, still lifes, and landscapes, as well as distinctive examples of painted furniture from the German American community, carved boxes, sculpture and decorative arts of the highest quality offer an introduction to more than a century of America’s rich and diverse folk art traditions and exemplify the breadth of American creative expression.

Bill Traylor (1853-1949), one of the most celebrated self-taught artists, spent most of his life as a sharecropper on the Alabama plantation where he was born. Traylor’s talent as an artist emerged suddenly after he left the plantation for Montgomery, where he took up residence at the Ross Clayton Funeral Parlor. After sleeping on a pallet among the caskets, Traylor would spend his days drawing, attracting spectators and children from the neighborhood. According to the book Bill Traylor, Unfiltered, published by Just Folk, “It is a mystery as to what could have motivated an 83-year-old man, born into slavery, who could not read or write, and had no training or exposure to art, to pick up a pencil and a straight-edged stick and start drawing figures on discarded cardboard in the spring of 1939. What is even more amazing is that, from that point, he almost never stopped drawing for the next three years, creating an incredible output of work, which is estimated at 1,200–1,600 pieces.”   

Visit InCollect.com to learn more about the Met's Bill Traylor exhibit.

When Ruth Horwich, a fixture in Chicago’s art community for over fifty-five years, passed away in July 2014, she left behind an extraordinarily diverse and deeply personal art collection. Horwich and her husband, Leonard, began collecting art in the late 1950s, often focusing  on unknown and emerging artists. The couple amassed a fascinating collection that included works by Chicago Imagists, European Surrealists, and self-taught and folk artists. They also acquired many notable pieces by Robert Matta, Alexander Calder, and Jean Dubuffet.

In addition to growing her collection, Horwich was dedicated to providing key support to many Chicago art institutions.

Self-taught, Overtown artist Purvis Young used little more than found objects and paint to craft his works, renowned for their rare ability to capture both hope and despair in the midst of urban strife and upheaval.

Finding patrons and fans in the likes of Bernard Davis (owner of the now-defunct Miami Museum of Modern Art), Lenny Kravitz, and Dan Aykroyd, among others, Young made an indelible mark on the city's artistic evolution.

Now, in honor of Black History Month, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in North Miami is launching a new exhibition: "Under the Bridge, Beyond the Beach and Above the Muck: The Art of Purvis Young."

The High Museum of Art has announced that Katherine Jentleson will become its curator of folk and self-taught art. The position, which has gone unfilled for nearly two years, was endowed last summer through a $2.5 million gift from Atlanta patrons Dan Boone and his late wife Merrie Boone.

Jentleson, a Ph.D. candidate in art history at Duke University and the 2014-15 Douglass Foundation Predoctoral Fellow in American Art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, will start at the High in September, She has worked at New York’s American Folk Art Museum and curated or assisted in organizing exhibits at Duke’s Nasher Museum of Art in Durham, N.C.