Self-Taught Art By Any of It Names

Self-Taught Art By Any of It NAMES

JULY 26 - SEPTEMBER 27, 2018 - REECE MUSEUM - ETSU

Self-taught Art, By Any of Its Names is an exhibition curated by Grey Carter. The works featured in two galleries of the Reece Museum are on loan from Carter’s gallery in Mclean Virgina, Grey Carter—Objects of Art.

Featured Artists: Lawrence Amos Eddie Arning Andrea Badami David Butler J.J. Cromer William Cross Victor Joseph Gatto Sybil Gibson Ted H. Gordon James Harold Jennings Paul Lancaster

Image: JJ Cromer, An Ill-timed Mockery, 2007, 22” x 30”, Mixed Media, 7305 JJC 1255c

Lawrence Lebduska Charlie Lucas Justin McCarthy Malcolm McKesson Luis Millingalli Jesus “Jessie” Montes J.B. Murry Joaquín Pomes Jack Savitsky Dorothy Strauser Shane Van Pelt

SELF-TAUGHT ART BY ANY OF ITS NAMES Grey Carter Grey Carter—Objects of Art

The artworks in this exhibition have all been created by artists who are self-taught, meaning that they have created art without any academic training. The title for this exhibition reflects the fact that for many years, artists who have not attended art school but who have nevertheless created compelling art, seem to always have a label attached to their efforts. It often appears that the artist’s story—their background, their environment, their challenges (physical/mental/social) often receive as much attention as does their art. We have become accustomed to these labels that are often attached to self-taught artists. However, should not their work be acknowledged and accepted for what it is? Why shouldn’t these artists’ efforts be recognized without the implied caveats of additional labels or unique storyline?

Why do we need to categorize artists or separate them out?

Many of us who have been admiring and collecting this work have come to conclude that this kind of labeling may have outlived its usefulness. While it might serve a purpose for art historians or teachers, these labels can too often be misleading or confusing to the general audience.

So long as mankind has created art, there have been selftaught artists, and in a general discussion of art history they were considered just that—artists. However, along the way, only those who received training in art making came to be recognized as artists without any caveat. Over the past few decades, for a rising

number of contemporary self-taught artists, there has been a trend to label them differently. It is reasonable to ask, why is there a need to classify or label self-taught artists in these different ways? Is its purpose to distinguish self-taught art from that which might be considered “real” or “approved” art?

Of course, labeling is not a particularly unique phenomenon.

Critics and art world authorities have long played a game of categories. Many seem more comfortable if they can attach a label to everyone and everything. In reality, this is often very difficult to do with any precision, especially with art and artists.

We have come to accept terms such as impressionism, expressionism, fauvism, modernism, minimalism, pop art, and others to distinguish periods or movements in art. While some of these were indeed formal groups of artists adhering to certain precepts or methods, they were just as often loose associations, or artists who did not know each other, but shared similar objectives. These terms can be useful when discussing phases in the history of art, however these can be rather restrictive and imprecise when labeling an individual artist, especially over a lifetime of work.

Relevant to this exhibition, let’s focus on another set of terms that are used to categorize self-taught artists. While there have been many exceptional artists who created work without the benefit of formal training, for many years the dominance of the art academies,

especially the restrictive European academies, obscured the work of many of those who were self-taught and as such were therefore judged to be inept and inferior. Around the beginning of the 20th century, a number of artists asserted themselves and rebelled against the academies. Self-taught artists began to receive serious attention from noteworthy or “accepted” artists in the mainstream of the art world. Important artists like Picasso, Kandinsky, Klee, Dubuffet, Burliuk and others began to argue that trained artists were often corrupted by their schooling, the academies, or other outside considerations. They felt that self-taught artists, being innocent of these influences, were therefore more pure, and their vision equally important. Paul Klee notably sought to create art like children because he felt that their art was innocent and untainted. Other accomplished artists even began to try to emulate in some ways the art of the self-taught. In the wake of this support from important contemporaries, some insightful collectors, dealers and eventually scholars developed a serious interest in self-taught art.

Among the earliest self-taught artists to gain attention were ordinary people from various walks of life: those who created art about everyday subjects for their own pleasure, from their heart and soul, not considering selling their art. Essentially, they created art and useful art objects that reflected the life and lifestyles of everyday folks. These came to be called simply folk artists. Today, folk art as a style has become so popular that we find trained artists who try to appropriate the aesthetic in order to call themselves folk artists. But there is nothing like the real thing.

had mental or emotional issues, including those who were institutionalized and who produced art in its “natural” or “raw” state. Therefore the term raw art began to be used. In the early 1970’s, the critic and writer Roger Cardinal posited the term that remains popular today: outsider. He sought to clarify, and maybe broaden, Dubuffet’s term of art brut. His definition meant that these artists were outside the artistic mainstream, untouched by taste or fashion, not aware of, or affected by, what was happening in the art world.

Some years later the term visionary came into vogue to indicate that some artists create work as a form of inner necessity or compulsion. Certainly, some self-taught artists even asserted they had visions or were inspired by God and proclaimed that the art they were creating were essentially spiritual messages.

More recently, another term has been introduced: vernacular.

This suggests that this group of self-taught artists, often Southern, and particularly African-American, speak to us through their art in their own vocabulary and therefore a different language.

Intuitive is yet another term. It certainly points to the character of what one sees in art created by some of the best self-taught artists. Those artists begin their work without any preconceived notion of a goal or objective and only concludes when they find that their work has achieved a state that feels right to them.

Over 50 years ago, when I first began collecting art, it was popular to use terms like naïve and primitive to define self-taught artists. These terms derived from the idea that these artists were innocents and their art was simple, basic, or crude in its execution.

These terms persisted and were quite popular for many decades.

While the use of categories is very interesting, is it always beneficial? Part of the problem is the lack of real consistency in the definition of these terms. Labels that might sometimes be useful in very narrow context are too often applied with a broad brush. You only have to search for “outsider art” online to discover this fact.

Jean Dubuffet, long an admirer of the self-taught, coined the term art brut. He was particularly interested in those who

Additionally, could not all of these terms be a bit uncomfortable for the artists? Do most artist hang the inspiration

for his or her body of work on a single source, such as the subconscience, revelation, vision, or drug-induced ecstasy? Are not all of their art works the product of multiple influences? Can one ignore the artist’s wealth of knowledge on many subjects and experiences or obscure their interest in cultural and current events?

Is it not the sum of all these factors that are the source of inspiration for their works?

Some observers and writers might apply subtle and nuanced differences in the definition of their terms, appropriate again for a singular discussion, but not very helpful for general use. More often, these terms tend to obfuscate or obscure understanding as much as they help. One category or term that is clear and has the most utility is self-taught.

Of course, this term is not without pitfalls. One issue is that many people presume self-taught to mean that a person has no education whatsoever, which is often not accurate. Self-taught artists can have varying levels of education. More precisely, the term means that the particular artist does not have formal, art school education. As for training, many have lots of training—but it is training that they gave themselves primarily through trial and error.

Broadly speaking, the self-taught artist is one who has started with an innate talent and has taught, trained, and educated themselves.

To be clear, self-taught should not be used to either praise or diminish an artist. Rather, it should be used to simply acknowledge the circumstances that play a part of who the artist is. They start with whatever raw talent they have been endowed with—creativity, drive, and native skills. Then, refining and honing these skills, they develop techniques that work for them—harnessing their artistic energy and allowing it to flow from their innermost self, then out of their head, down the arm, and out their hands and onto the canvas, paper, rock or whatever surface where it becomes realized for all to see and enjoy.

Self-taught artists can come from every walk of life. Some are mainstream, some have physical or mental challenges, some are learned, some are innocent, some seem peculiar to us, while others seem surprisingly normal.

You are likely already familiar with some well known selftaught artists whose work and notoriety have eclipsed the fact that they were self-taught: Henri Rousseau, the French naïve and his renown countryman Paul Gauguin; Horace Pippin, the Pennsylvania folk painter, and nearby American modernist Sterling Strauser; the extraordinary Joseph Cornell, sculptor of small boxes; famous New York pop artist from Tennessee, Red Grooms, and his Nashville friend Paul Lancaster. I could continue, but hopefully the point is clear.

The idea here is not to argue in favor of, or against, being schooled in art making. There are plenty of artists, both trained and self-taught, who have successfully contributed great art, attained recognition, and even enjoyed financial rewards. But as we acknowledge that the term self-taught is in common use, we can ask if it truly helps to define these artists. Even entire institutions and museums use terms like folk, visionary and art brut in their names to identify themselves.

Finally, in this specific exhibition, you will see a wide variety of self-taught artists. Some have been called folk, like Jack Savitsky who painted the everyday life of farmers and miners in small towns of Pennsylvania; or Luis Millingalli who tries to capture the flora, fauna, and village life of Ecuador before it is forever altered by industrialization. Artists dubbed outsiders, like Victor Joseph Gatto, Justin McCarthy, and Lawrence Lebduska, did not adhere to the academic processes and techniques, but were recognized as masterful by their contemporaries. Some are considered visionary artists, like JB Murry, who painted gorgeous abstractions that he claims came directly from God; and Paul Lancaster who paints beautiful but not academically or technically perfect fantasies that,

as he says, he “sets down what comes into my head.” You will see Malcolm McKesson and JJ Cromer who are highly educated, though not by art schools. McKesson produced an engrossing narrative in art and word, exploring the questions of gender well before his time.

And Crommer repeatedly creates exceptional, appealing works by using his own artistic vocabulary, or what he calls “a set of terms” for his commentary on the cultural landscape. Racism, sexism, immigration, the mass media, science and technology, religion, freedom of expression, class inequalities, and art history, all inspire his pieces.

All of the artists in this exhibit have been driven to make art by an inner force, not by commercial reward. They create art not just because they want to, but rather because they have to. Each is strongly individualistic. Like a child who draws outside the lines, they are not seeking to be different, they just are. And the results are spectacular!

Like the title of the exhibition, I trust you will find the works to be at their core, and in their spirit, thoughtful, exciting, provocative, and full of positive tension. But whether you embrace or disavow labels, I hope you find the art entertaining, inspirational, amusing, and perhaps even educational. Most importantly, I hope the exhibit will be memorable.

LAWERENCE AMOS

Born in East Prairie, Missouri, on June 14, 1944, Lawrence Amos was one of 11 children in a poor laborer’s family. He spent early years in Mississippi and school years in Chicago, before dropping out at age 17 to join the Army. The Army trained him as a medic because he says he was “big and strong enough to hold up one end of a stretcher.” Actually, Lawrence is exceptionally bright and well read, although so reticent one easily could be deceived, unless one is watching him play chess or completing the New York Times crossword puzzles in ink.

Amos went to Vietnam in time for the Tet Offensive and volunteered for a second tour. Then came tours in Germany, Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C., Germany again, and Louisiana.

He had married and his wife urged him to “get out” and return to the D.C. area, her home. He worked for a while in a psychiatric hospital, then for 30 years in a retirement home, before retiring himself from what he called a very stressful job.

Amos had no training in art when he began to make drawings and paintings in his spare time. As a schoolboy, he had done all sorts of illustrations when they were needed for classrooms, year books, and the like. His only exposure to art was visits to museums while awaiting connections for his long bus commutes going back and forth between

home and work. Primarily his art evolved from his very perceptive observations of life in the neighborhoods and on the streets. Add in a good sense of humor and satire, and rather skillful drafting and you have Amos’s art. He says he paints what “just pops into his head” but that he works out the entire painting before he begins.

Amos’s works are always brightly colored and usually complex.

While their titles indicate some theme, there are often numerous points to ponder in a single work. Paintings are humorous and often irreverent, but they are never cruel. They just reflect life as Amos views it. He cannot recall when someone first offered to buy his works but he has been in a number of group shows, had three one person shows at the highly respected Athenaeum Art Center, exhibited at the American Visionary Art Museum and is included in many private fine art collections.

Lawrence Amos died July 17, 2014.

Lawrence Amos M’Ladys, 2007 18” x 24”, Mixed media 7176 LA 142C

EDDIE ARNING

Eddie Arning is a well recognized folk artist and is included in numerous public and important private collections.

Carl Wilhelm Edward Arning, was born in 1898, to a German-speaking Lutheran family, in the farming community of Germania, Texas. He received only six years of schooling and worked on his family’s farm until 1928, when following a series of violent behaviors, including an attack on his mother, led to a year of treatment at Austin State Hospital. He was released briefly only to be committed again in 1934, after displaying symptoms diagnosed as schizophrenia.

Arning began making art in 1964 when Helen Mayfield, a hospital employee who attempted an early form of art therapy, encouraged him to do some drawing. Arning went on to produce more than 2,000 drawings over the next nine years. His early works were in crayon on paper and were primarily still life, animal, and landscape subjects drawn from childhood memories of his life on the farm. By 1966, he had incorporated human figures, and in 1969 when he switched to oil pastels his drawings grew denser and more varied in color and texture.

Arning collected magazine advertisements and photos which he used as source materials like many self-taught artist. He began producing more complex compositions often inspired by these advertisements and magazine illustrations.

These later works were more graphic images translating the images he

viewed into heavily stylized and highly personal arrangements of simplified, abstract shapes, and bold planes of color. His style involved a twisting of perspective, flattening the subject, a more personal interpretation of the subject.

Thus one could say his style became more mature and individualized. Arning always worked in the same general manner, covering the entire surface of the paper with dense strokes of color.

In 1973, when he was asked to leave the hospital for unspecified bad conduct, he moved to live with a sister and stopped making art. The sale of his work had paid for his hospitalization and achieved for him a certain degree of fame, but despite subsequent stays in various nursing homes, he never again created art. He died in McGregor, Texas, in 1993.

Eddie Arning Picnic, undated 24 1/2” x 19 1/4”, Oil pastel on paper 5224 EA 105

ANDREA BADAMI

Born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1913, Andrea Badami is known for humorous paintings, full of irony and produced in an exaggerated Pop Art style, which possess a fusion of American and Italian sensibilities. Badami was self-taught and painted much of his adult life, but was most active between 1960 and 1990. Badami’s life was as colorful as his work. When he was five, his parents took him back to their native home in Corleone, Sicily. In 1929 he returned to Omaha to live with an uncle, but two years later he returned to Corleone and was married. Conscripted into Mussolini’s army in 1940, he was captured by the British in North Africa, and spent the rest of World War II as a prisoner of war. When he returned to Sicily in 1946, he contacted the American consulate in Palermo to reassert his American citizenship, and soon after, returned to the United States. He brought his family to America in 1948, and worked in the repair shop for the Union Pacific Railroad, in Omaha, Nebraska.

Badami spent all of his spare time painting, determined to become a better artist. Lacking proficiency in English, art became a way in which he could relate his past experiences and express his personal view of the world. Tom Bartek, associated with the Joselyn Museum and Creighton University in Omaha, recognized Badami’s talent and

appreciated the humor and pop images in his work, and exhibited some of the artist’s paintings in the 1960s. In 1978, after thirty years of service, Badami retired from the Union Pacific Railroad.

Several years later he moved to Tucson, Arizona, where he continued to make paintings, until his death. By all accounts the artist never used live models, which is surprising because his figures are so realistic. The saints and Madonnas in the artist’s paintings are a reflection of his Italian and religious upbringing, yet the overall impact of a Badami painting is always American because of their references to popular culture.

Andrea Badami passed away in Tucson, Arizona, in 2002.

Mother with Son Crying, undated 29” x 21”, Acrylic on canvas 8516 AB 105

DAVID BUTLER

David Butler was born on October 2, 1898, in the small town of Good Hope, Louisiana, the son of a carpenter and a missionary mother.

While he demonstrated some skill in his childhood drawings and in working with his hands, he spent most of his life in menial jobs in the timber and pulpwood industry. An accident at work left him partially disabled and forced him to retire from full time work when he was 62.

It was then he had the time and inclination to make things to “pretty up” his home. Used to working with his hands and an eye for color and form, he picked up materials that were available at hand and turned them into objects of joy and beauty. His images of fantasy which he cut from metal were brightly painted and mounted or hung about his home and yard. These were created for his own enjoyment and for friends and neighbors.

When a number of artists and collectors learned of his work in the 1970’s, word of this “outsider” artist known for his talent in creating art from metal cut outs and other found items quickly spread. Butler was regarded as highly inventive and visual, crafting colorful animals, dragons, mermaids, and people from tin as he sat on the ground, using a hammer and modified ax head to create original works of art using his intuitive knowledge of color and spatial relationships.

Unlike many self-taught artists who only gained fame following their deaths, David Butler experienced some success during his lifetime.

His first national recognition came when he was included in “Black Folk Art in America, 1930-1980,” an exhibition organized by the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. He had several other museum exhibitions including the Delaware Art Museum and Philadelphia Museum of Art.

After selling his art well for a few years in the 1980s, he became very discouraged by repeated incidents of vandalism at his home and in his neighborhood. Added to his failing health, he stopped making art and finally moved out of his home and into a nursing home. He died there on May 18, 1997, just short of his 99th birthday.

David Butler Bus Ride, undated 14� x 28�, Painted metal 6782 DB 111

J.J. CROMER

J.J. Cromer is a fine self-taught artist and a very well educated young man. Not a credential one often hears about a self-taught artist, nevertheless it is a fact. Having a bachelor’s degree in history and two master’s degrees, one in english and another in library science means he is well schooled, just not in art. His penchant for education comes naturally enough; both parents were science teachers. He was not encouraged toward art when he showed an aptitude for drawing in childhood but he says his mother was supportive of his creative instincts, his father clearly wanted him to become a doctor or lawyer. This is a bit poignant, since his father had some aspiration to be an artist in his youth.

Being an artist though was not a practical thing to do and after all practical is how life is supposed to be when you live in small towns of southwest Virginia. Cromer was born in 1967 in Princeton, West Virginia.

He grew up in Tazewell, Virginia and except for his years in college, has lived in this corner of Virginia most of his life working in a public library.

Soon after married his wife Mary, he began to “draw” incessantly. It was a pastime while watching television in the evening. The pastime gave way to obsession and drawing developed into painting.

Experimenting with new techniques and learning rapidly what works for him, he has developed technical competency and his own

unique set of artistic styles. His works are expressive and vivid. Often they are obsessively detailed. Objects may be recognizable but always describe his special viewpoint.

They are sometimes witty, sometimes satirical, or even sad, but rarely obvious or “normal.” He is often partial to faces and once expressed a “desire to paint all the faces in the world.” A formidable task indeed, but given the range of emotions he captures, and the obsessive nature of his labor, one wonders is it inconceivable? Cromer’s works have grown in scale while retaining intensity. They not only entertain but often challenge the viewer.

Since his first exhibitions in 1999, Cromer’s works have rapidly gained widespread recognition by art galleries and astute collectors throughout the United States. In addition to many private collections, his works are included in the permanent collections of the High Museum of Art, Taubman Museum of Art, Intuit: the Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, the American Visionary Art Museum, and Longwood Center for Visual Arts among others.

J.J. Cromer Blue Knows All the Words, 2014 8” x 10”, Mixed media on paper 8403 JJC 1634c

WILLIAM CROSS

William Cross was born in the small town of Erwin, Tennessee, nestled in the Appalachian Mountains of East Tennessee in 1957. Early in the 20th century the townspeople of Erwin hanged a circus elephant named Mary from a railroad crane. William Cross and Mary the elephant are two of the many interesting things for which Erwin has become well known.

Cross’s father was a hard-core Hell’s Angel and put William out on his own when he was 17. He indicates that he is a Tennessee mountain man who, “lives off of the fat of the land just as Crockett and Boone.”

His passions are carving and playing the banjo. He has been carving for over 20 years, but only a few years ago found his niche in stone. Cross’s works have been discovered and are being sought by folk art collectors throughout the country. He has had no training. When asked about his works, Cross says “I just see those things and I just gets crazy until I get it carved in stone, then it takes me 15 or 16 hours to carve it with my knife and chisel in my workshop outback.”

Cross’s carvings are exceptionally well executed and have a good sense of design for a self-taught artist. His subject matter is usually religious themes or the female nude with an occasional diversion into something clearly imaginary.

William Gregory Cash also known by his artist name, William Cross, passed away after a short battle with lung cancer Saturday, April 11, 2015.

William Cross Lamb of God, 2007 8” x 16” x 8”, Rock carving 7279 WC 139

VICTOR JOSEPH GATTO

“A hard luck guy,” was how he described himself, and with good reason.

Gatto was born in 1893 in a New York City tenement. At age 4 his mother died and his laborer father put him and four brothers into an orphanage until his father remarried 4 years later. Gatto loved his stepmother and remained close until she died in 1944. He was raised as a Catholic and went to the fifth-grade level when he left school to work. The only jobs he held were unskilled and low paying. He became a professional feather weight boxer in 1913, with some 30 fights in 6 years.

His brother John, was a criminal and Joe was imprisoned for a robbery he did not do. He tried to escape twice.

In 1938, Gatto met some exhibitors at a Greenwich Village art show and was told one could earn $600 for a single painting. Gatto decided to become an artist himself. At age 45, he began to paint with no artistic background except drawing in school. He liked to tell that Teddy Roosevelt had once visited his classroom and declared him “the best drawer in the school.”

By 1940, he had been discovered by collectors of modern primitives and someone declared him New York’s Rousseau. In 1943, the Charles Barzansky Gallery gave him a one-man show which was a triumph. Over the years, his work was bought and exhibited by major

museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of the City of New York, the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Gatto was a man of bright and dark sides. He was befriended by artists Sterling and Dorothy Strauser, who assisted Gatto during summers in the Poconos, Ivan Black, the publicist brought Gatto to the attention of the Barzanskys, boarded him for a year at his Woodstock home; and the Barzanskys promoted him. But he was an abrasiveness tough who would verbally abuse and misuse such friends. Still, supporters said he could be sweet and generous, “always ready to give money to people down on their luck,” said Strauser.

Gatto died at 71 on May 27, 1965.

Victor Joseph Gatto Race Horses at the Break, ca 1950s 12” x 26”, Oil on canvas 8275 VJG 131

SYBIL GIBSON

So much has been written about Sybil Gibson that one hesitates to write, rather to just let her paintings speak for themselves. And they do.

Marvelously. Working almost exclusively in tempera on found materials, especially brown paper bags and newsprint, Sybil Gibson created a large body of beautiful images. While they appear as real people and objects to the eye, they are products of her imagination and are extraordinarly expressive, even evocative. Simple in one sense but wonderfully rich and dynamic.

Sybil Gibson was born in Dora, Alabama, in 1908. She would have come from a prominent family for her father was a banker, merchant and coal mine operator. Sybil graduated from Jacksonville State Teachers College in Alabama and taught elementary school. In the 40’s, health problems prompted a move to Miami. There she married and taught school for ten years. Following the death of her husband in 1958, she seemed to be plagued by health and financial problems and later became somewhat reclusive. She even disappeared one week before her oneperson show at the Miami Museum of Modern Art was to open in May, 1971. Later, she reappeared in Birmingham, Alabama. Subsequently with failing health, she lived in nursing homes until she died in 1995.

At the age of 55, Sybil had begun to paint. She told how she

discovered art by accident, when she admired some wrapping paper in a store and decided to surprise her family with gifts wrapped in paper she had painted. Using tempera poster paint and brown paper bags she created her first works.

Later she wrote, “…other eyes saw them—eyes that knew something about art. People became quite enthusiastic over them. I didn’t know what to make of it.” What she made of it was to continue, unfettered by hardships, to create beautiful paintings for the rest of her life and provide enormous enjoyment for those of us who are privileged to view them. Her works are in far too many museums and collections to list and comparisons to other fine artists too numerous to mention. Sybil Gibson is simply one of the truly great self-taught American artists.

Sybil Gibson Seated Figure-Yellow Hair, 1993 20” x 30”, Acrylic on cardboard ply 4637 SG 107

TED H. GORDON

Ted H. Gordon was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1924 and moved to New York with his family at the age of 14. After graduating from high school, he worked at numerous odd jobs (messenger, clerk, apprentice, and bricklayer) while sporadically attending various college courses. In 1953, he moved to the West Coast, married and settled down in San Francisco. In 1958, he graduated from San Francisco State College, with a major in social welfare. Gordon then went to work in a state institution for the mentally retarded and took some additional college work at UCLA. Then he sought a less “stressful” occupation as a clerk. He worked with the Wadsworth Hospital in Los Angeles before moving back to San Francisco, where he worked at the Army hospital in the Presidio.

Then, after 25 years with the Federal Service, Gordon retired in 1987.

Gordon had no formal art training; his ability is a natural gift and self-taught. About the time of his marriage in 1954, he began drawing, rather like a series of doodles; mostly caricatures of the human visage and figure. There was a relapse of several years before he returned to this pastime; augmenting this original repertoire with stylized cats, birds, fish, flowers, mandalas, and designs. He finds especially fascinating the shape and form of the human physiognomy with its many lines and shadows; and its endless grimaces.

In addition to his social work and studies, it appears that Gordon has been influenced by his readings of Kretschmer and Sheldon, Physique and Character, “The Varieties of the Human Physique,” and “Physique and Temperament,” and his readings in anthropology. (Coon’s “The Races of Europe” for example, with its many plates and illustrations.)

It has also been observed that much of Gordon’s obsession with facial images stems from his own frustrating search for a personal identity, a quest which he feels exists in a less articulated form among many of his fellow citizens. Whatever the motivation for his obsession, the wonderfully detailed and intriguing works are a joy to view and study.

Gordon has had numerous solo and group exhibits in the United States and Europe. He is included in important private and public collections such as Le Musee de l’Art Brut, National Museum of American Art, Museum of American Folk Art, and the High Museum of Art to name a few.

Ted H. Gordon Tricky Lenses, 5-30-96 14” x 11 ¾”, Mixed media drawing 4972 TG 122

JAMES HAROLD JENNINGS

James Harold Jennings was from Pinnacle, in rural North Carolina. He dropped out of school after the fifth grade and was taught at home by his schoolteacher mother. He also read dictionaries, encyclopedias, Popular Mechanics issues, and National Geographic. These sources provided a diverse, if eccentric, education for the artist, traces of which can often be found in his artwork. Jennings worked for a short time on his family’s tobacco farm. Later, he was a night watchman and a movie projectionist, but he left that job after his nerves “went bust.”

The death of his mother in 1974 was a catalyst for his artistic impulses. He began using scrap lumber to make whirligigs, windmills, ferris fheels, indians, Amazon women, angels and an assortment of animals, all of which he painted in bright colors and assembled in his yard. Jennings’ work was influenced by dreams, visions and his occasional reading material. One series of pieces featured “tufgh women” beating up frightened, smaller men, and was inspired by reading about Celtic and Amazon women. When inspiration failed, Jennings resorted to a favorite trick; he pressed his fingers into his closed eyelids and sought ideas in the blotches of color, which appear. Calling himself the “sun, moon and star artist,” he frequently incorporated these symbols of nature in his works and included them with his signature.

From the late 1980s until his death he lived alone, without electricity, telephone, or running water. Jennings committed suicide in April of 1999, due to his fears concerning the impending millennium and his failing health.

James Harold Jennings Girls, Animals and Circles, ca. 1990 12” x 18” x 2 1/4”, Painted wood sculpture 8167 JHJ 108

PAUL LANCASTER

Paul Lancaster was born in Lobelville,Tennessee, in 1930 and resides in Nashville. Without any art education, Lancaster began to paint about 1959 and has gained increasing recognition for his creations.

His works are in many private collections, as well as the permanent collections of the Smithsonian, American Visionary Art Museum, Parrish Museum and University of Virginia collection. Lancaster’s early works had more primitive qualities and appeared full of fantasy. His work grew exceptionally so that many cannot believe he is self taught. He has worked with most all media available to the painter. Lancaster has even taught himself how to create etchings. This graphics work has proven significant for it is in his etchings that his great facility for the drawn line and subtle color can be fully accomplished.

Paul is a simple man, quiet, and modest. He is part Cherokee Indian which contributes to his personality and is clearly reflected in his work. One could easily see his works as “visions” of a beautiful life, deeply rich in the wonders of nature. He belongs to the outdoors and his works always belong to nature and the spiritual. The subjects of his work are the forest, woods, and streams. Figures are in his works but they may, in many works, seem unimportant, helpful for proportion but not always essential to the presentation. When he does include figures they

are usually female, always beautiful, often exotic. Working strictly from imagination, he often animates his trees and rocks suggesting animal or human forms. His visions are peaceful and quiet, almost fairy tale, pretty, and idealistic.

Lancaster is a true self-taught artist in every respect-his knowledge and technique are natural gifts not academic. His skills have been honed over 50 years of work. While his style ranges from the simple to extraordinarily complex, it is always innocent and honest. In this sense, he is great rather than good.

Paul Lancaster The Crossing, 2001 40” x 40”, Oil on canvas 5721 PL 380C

LAWRENCE LEBDUSKA

Lawrence Lebduska was born to German parents in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1894. His life is one of the most interesting of American self-taught artists in the 20th Century. His father was in America on behalf of the Leipzig-based stained-glass firm of Flieder & Schneider and returned to Leipzig when Lawrence was 5. Lebduska was educated in Leipzig and studied the craft of making stained-glass at a school run by his father’s company. Then with no formal training in art, he began to paint by using his knowledge of color gained from making stained-glass.

Returning to the United States in 1912, Lebduska lived in Baltimore and moved to New York a year later. He received no formal artistic training.

However, he did work painting murals, creating stained-glass decorations and work for private homes in New York.

Lebduska submitted his paintings to group shows around New York, notably at the Opportunity Gallery and the Bourgeois Gallery.

Lebduska began to achieve a great deal of fame in the 1930’s, when several major New York City galleries began to feature works by a variety of nonacademic artists. Lebduska’s work was recognized along with John Kane, Morris Hirschfield, Grandma Moses, and Horace Pippin. In 1936, the Contemporary Arts Gallery held a near sell out show of his works.

This exhibition was said to have influenced Abby Aldrich Rockefeller to

begin her famous folk art collection. Lebduska was also involved with the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project (WPA/FAP).

Ledbuska’s fortunes turned for the worse with the advent of World War II. He was afflicted by disease and beset by alcohol such that in the 1950’s, his work gradually began to be ignored. Lebduska was aided then by the Long Island dealer Eva Lee, who helped him to recuperate and start painting again. He started showing his work again at venues like the Krasner and Tutti galleries in the early 1960’s. Lebduska died in 1966.

Since Lebduska’s death, he has regained his status in the annals of American art history as a powerfully innovative and talented artist, all the more amazing since he was self-taught. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, and the University of Arizona, among others.

The primary subject matter for most of Lebduska’s work is animals, generally in fierce situations. He once lived with an uncle who bred horses in Orangeville, Maryland, where he had the opportunity to observe animals and their temperament. He also researched and read books describing animals’ colors, forms, and habits. These observations led to work that might be labeled “folk-fantasy.”

Lawrence Lebduska Two White Egrets, 1964 9” x 13”, Oil on board 8147 LL 116

CHARLIE LUCAS

Charlie Lucas is a self-taught artist whose sculptures and paintings he calls “recycling� but are truly creations in his search for meaning in his life; and especially a deeper meaning in his roots. Born in 1951, he has spent most of his life in rural Alabama. Due to poor circumstances and undiagnosed dyslexia, he went to school only through the fourth grade.

However, his father was a mechanic and his grandfather a blacksmith, so he became skilled, particularly in welding. He left home at age 14 making his way with odd jobs and lived in Florida for a while. At age 20, he returned home, bought a piece of ground in Pink Lily and built a house.

Charlie had a severe accident in 1984 that left him rather disabled.

During this period in which he says he prayed for meaning for his life and came to know that he was to make art. Charlie had made toys for children when he was only a child himself so after recovering enough to work; he began making new toys which evolved to become extraordinary sculptures. These found object assemblages represent animals and people, often members of his extended family and references to his heritage. It seems everything has a useful place in Charlie’s world. Old car hoods have been incised for figurative studies. A broken hub cap has its face covered with utensils and twine to create an image. Bike wheels, gears, spokes, chains, and odd strips and bands of metal are combined into a family

portrait with references to their spiritual connectivity. He is surrounded by art as his home is an environment where his largest sculptures share their space with his grazing cows.

Charlie is an especially sensitive man but rarely speaks of the difficulties of his life, instead he focuses on his drive to create meaningful art which he hopes will be appreciated. Still, those rough and bold sculptures cannot hide their tender inner self. Best known for his sculpture, Charlie also creates paintings on everything from canvas to odd pieces of wood. These colorful semi-abstractions often convey similar messages as his three dimensional work but may evoke pre-historical themes or even other world imagery. Charlie Lucas is one of the best of the southern black self-taught artists who have gained international reputations in the art world. He is widely collected and included in a large number of museum collections.

Charlie Lucas Chain My Body Not My Soul, 1996 29� Ht., Found metal sculpture 8179 CL 159c

JUSTIN MCCARTHY

“Justin McCarthy [1892-1977] was a genius, and all geniuses ultimately remain some what enigmatic.” So wrote Randall Morris in his introduction the recent exhibition of McCarthy’s work at the Noyes Museum in New Jersey. His genius may be arguable but certainly he is a major self-taught artist. Never quite fitting the limited definitions of the art world, he may not be easily categorized, however his work is growing in recognition and is highly prized by many collectors.

Justin McCarthy was born in Weatherly, Pennsylvania, in 1892, the son of a newspaper executive. As a young man, he expected to become a lawyer but failed to pass the bar examination. McCarthy pursued various schemes to make his living and finally settled into a life of raising and selling vegetables. In 1920, McCarthy began to paint, an activity he claims resulted from a visit to Paris and the Louvre in 1907.

For many years his work was unnoticed except by customers for his patent medicines and the buyers of produce he peddled from a truck.

In the 1960s, after 40 years of painting without recognition, he began to be appreciated in outdoor art shows. About the same time he met Sterling and Dorothy Strauser who encouraged him and brought his works to the attention of museums and collectors. Justin McCarthy’s paintings have been exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, Everhart Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the Abby

Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Collection in Williamsburg, Virginia, and the Museum of American Folk Art in New York City. The Museum of Modern Art included his work in a traveling exhibition in 1967.

Justin McCarthy is able to observe and translate his impressions into paintings, which have the elements, we have grown accustomed to appreciate and enjoy in much of the 20th Century painting.

McCarthy stands apart, however, because he is untrained and his innate sensibilities find expression naturally in abstract terms employed consciously by the trained artist.

Justin McCarthy Ice Capades, ca. 1960s 32” x 28”, Oil on Masonite 6758 JMc 174

MALCOLM MCKESSON

Malcolm McKesson died in February 1999, only a very few years after revealing to the world his lifetime secret—writing, drawing, and painting about his personal world.

McKesson was born into a well-to-do New York family in 1909, and lived a rather privileged life with many opportunities. While he seemed to appreciate this position, things did not seem to work. His businessman father brought him into the company following a very good education, but he did not seem to be an effective manager. Trying the army, he learned early that he was not cut out to be a soldier. Then he tried to teach school but he said that was a disaster. So he was pleased when his wife, the poet Madeleine Mason, convinced him that he need not have a career but could stay home, for he loved the arts, his wife, and the secret explorations of his mind.

It is these explorations that emerge in his provocative works of art. As he confronted his feelings and wrote his fantasies, particularly his fictionalized autobiography, “Matriarchy,” he sought to illustrate them. So we can share a bit as we view his drawings and paintings that are complex, exotic, and subtlety erotic. The works often have strong architectural references for he also was an admirer/student of fine architecture.

To meet this gentle, unassuming man was a joy. He was an interesting and articulate companion. He lived in the same New York apartment since the 1950s and alone since his wife died in 1990. However, he hardly seemed reclusive for he was active in body, mind, and soul.

As Dr. Martin Wilner, the psychoanalyst, wrote about him, “He shifts readily from speaking about his life to his drawings…while at times he speaks with precision about persons, places and times, it soon becomes clear that these factual anchors are quite transposable…fantasy can become autobiography, reality becomes ephemeral and dreamlike, and intensely perverse reveries become art.”

McKesson’s works are extraordinary and cannot be easily classified either fine or outsider art. Rather they are eagerly sought by admirers of both and are included in important collections and museums.

Malcolm McKesson Me and Other Women, undated 29� x 26�, Mixed media 8486 MM 103

LUIS MILLINGALI

“I like to paint everything that surrounds me: flowers, trees, Andean scenes, and all that highlights my people’s rich culture,” says Millingalli. “Every time that I see nature getting destroyed by the man’s hand, especially in my country, it gives a deep sadness to think that in the future the mountains, the flowers and the rivers will not be there anymore as I have seen them and that is why I paint them.” Luis Millingalli is a self-taught artist of indigenous birth from Ecuador. He was born in December, 1959, in Cotopaxi, a spiritual place at the foot of a volcano. His mother, Marie Rosa, died when he was only 10 and his father Santiago died when he was 14, so he was left to fend for himself at an early age.

“In my family, nobody was an artist...at elementary school my teachers gave several awards for my drawings…then I learned that a distant relative of mine was a painter. This was of great significance to me. I started as a painter, without having had any art schooling, when I was 12 years of age.” When only 15, Luis was discovered by a wealthy banker who bought several works, then invited Luis to exhibit in his bank.

This opened doors to more exhibitions in cities like Quito, Guayaquil, and Cuenca. He met the Ecuadorean master painter Guayasamin, who befriended him, purchased works and allowed him space within which to work. However, there is no evidence that Millingalli’s style was influenced.

After a decade of painting, exhibitions began to come in Madrid, Paris, Rome, and throughout South America where he was well received. Now we have the opportunity to see the works of Millingalli in the United States.

Millingalli’s paintings on canvas and sheep skins are very straight forward depictions of life in rural Ecuador. His colors are strong but not always primary, his figures crisp, and static but full of life. His compositions are well developed while filled with the charm of the naïve.

In sum, they are exceptional expressions which please the senses while accomplishing Millingalli’s purpose which is “to depict the sufferings of my people but at the same time the sweet happiness and tenderness of the life in the rural fields.”

Luis Millingalli Danzantes en la Plaza, 2010 12” x 15 ¾”, Acrylic 8003 LM 222c

JESUS "JESSIE" MONTES

Jessie Montes grew up in Mexico in a large family living in poverty. He says that making his own toys was the beginning of his creativity, however, that creativity did not flourish until 1990, just before he retired. In the interim, Jessie had immigrated to the United States, worked a variety of jobs, primarily custodian of a high school, raised a family and became a naturalized citizen. Wishing to free his mind from concern about two children involved in the first Gulf War, he sought out an activity. It became his new career in art.

Jessie began creating his art by recycling waste corrugated boxes and bulletin board paper. It was plentiful and cost nothing. He began to make frames for photographs and soon came to fill in the frames with objects and developed scenes. Cutting the materials at three different angles yielded him different textures, effects, and coloration. Then he tried using acrylic paints for more variety of color. Using ample quantities of glue for stability and a protective coating, he finished his art works.

Jessie’s creations were little known until 1998, when he gained an agent who had purchased many of his works in a local show. Since then he has gained widespread recognition and received rave reviews for numerous one person and group shows throughout the country. He has been the subject of a PBS feature, and is being purchased by collectors and museums.

Whether wall hung plaques showing scenes from his life, portraits of famous people, or three dimensional message “sculptures,” the works are truly unique. There is simply nothing like them in the art world today.

They are precisely crafted and beautifully artistic.

Jessie suffers from emphysema and has now moved to Colorado.

Because of his health and since his process is tedious and slow, the number of works remains small. However, the impact of each piece is big and emotion laden because as Jessie says, “it is indeed a unique, creative vision from God.” And he always adds, “I hope you like my work.”

Jesus “Jessie” Montes Other Times, 2009 25” x 21 1/2”, Acrylic and cardboard 7930 JM 137c

J.B. MURRY

The artistic works of John [J.B.] Murry seem somewhat a miracle.

How does an illiterate black man, born in rural Georgia, just after the turn of the century create wonderful, colorful, emotion laden renderings that are admired by art museums and prized by collectors? Murry thought he was inspired by God and when we see the response to his work should we doubt.

Born in Warren County, Georgia, in 1908, Murry attended school for only a month. He spent the remainder of his working life as a field hand on farms in the area. He married in 1929, and with his wife Cleo had 11 children. He retired in the late seventies and sometime around 1978 experienced his “visions” with the Lord. Murry was known as a good man who practiced his religion in an unremarkable way until his visions occurred.

Afterwards, he was outspoken and quite dedicated to doing the works he felt the Lord had called him to create. During the decade before he died in 1988, he created a body of mystical paintings and spiritual writings. These he said could be understood when viewed through bottles of water over which he had prayed and of course, if the viewer were “saved.”

Whether done on adding machine tape as some early works or on high quality materials which he later used, J.B.’s paintings are special. Clearly there is no attempt to draw figures that are commonly recognizable and there is no attempt to render according to some academic code for color use. Rather his imagined figures, which may or may not look like our ideas of spirits, follow an order of their own.

The colors, or lack thereof, also seem to have no rules but still possess an esthetic that is always charming, never disturbing. Whatever their message, it is a wonderful one and the response to them is excitement.

Murry’s art is included in numerous books on outsider/visionary art and a biography by Dr. Mary Padgelek was recently published. He was included in the famous Corcoran show in 1989, and is highly sought after by collectors. We are pleased to offer many beautiful works by J.B. Murry.

J.B. Murry Spirits Painting, undated 23” x 18”, Mixed media on paper 5865 JBM 107

JOAQUIN POMES

Joaquín Pomés Figueredo was born in 1964, in the city of Sancti Spiritus in Cuba. He liked to draw from an early age, filling any available paper with scribblings. His father was an office clerk and his mother was a teacher for children with special needs. Her death in 1981, when Pomés was just 17, was a loss from which he had difficulty overcoming.

Pomés attended the Instituto Superior Tecnico de Cienfuegos, now Universidad de Cienfuegos, graduating in 1987 with a degree in Industrial Economics. From 1989, he worked for 13 years as a planning specialist at the “Melanio Hernandez” Sugar Mill in the town of Taguasco and later at the “Remberto A. Aleman” Sugar Mill in Guayos, both in the province of Sancti Spiritus. Also in 1989, Joaquín fell in love with and married Olga Santos Sosa, a graduate in Accounting and Finance from the University of Santa Clara. They have one daughter, Elizabeth.

Pomés continued to draw for himself in his spare time until the 1990’s when Ela Rodriguez, a close and dear friend of his mother, showed his drawings to Antonio Diaz, the painter of Sancti Spiritus, who marveled at the art, and said that there was certainly something worth pursuing here.

With that encouragement, Joaquín began displaying his work at group and individual exhibitions in Trinidad, Sancti Spiritus, and Havana.

At the end of 1999, Pomés decided to search out a different career path. In early 2000, he inherited a house in Boca near the sea, in the outskirts

of the city of Trinidad, (today, a World Heritage site). He and his wife converted it into the “Sol y Mar” hostal, which they operate together with their daughter. Despite duties as chef, his new lifestyle change made him “master of his own time.” He was able to increase both the quantity and complexity of his work and to fully exploit his desire to give form in pen and ink drawings into a myriad psychological and philosophical intricacies of life in Cuba. He prefers to work in black and white, because that is how he first started, but “...also because white represents for him light and the coming together of two colors, and black is the sum of colors and of all the possible colors.”

He works intuitively, governed by a strong and instinctive drive for equilibrium. A central icon or figure is typical of his recent work, most often feminine, framed by a rich texture of botanical patterns, idiosyncratic repetitions, and combinations, always, with an overlay of ambiguity as to whether the figure is emerging, resisting, or resting. Evident throughout his work is his profound confidence in the communicative power of symbolism.

During a trip to Cuba, the painter Virginia Schofield became acquainted with Pomés’s drawings and encouraged him to participate in international art exhibitions. In August 2014, Pomés was granted a visa to come to the United States to participate in his first exhibition outside Cuba at GALA Hispanic Theater in Washington, D.C.

Joaquín Pomes Sueños Leganos I (Distant Dreams), 2016 21” x 15”, Color inks on cartolina (postcard) 8497 JPF 120c

JACK SAVITSKY

“Coal Miner Jack” Savitsky was a native of New Philadelphia in northeastern Pennsylvania. He is considered by many as one of America’s finest self-taught painters.

Born in 1910 into a family of nine, Savitsky attained only a sixth grade education. Then he had to go to work, and the only work was the coal mines. He had a strong desire to create pictures and used chalk to make pictures on the walls in the mines. Occasionally he would draw pictures in bars for a pint of whiskey, a pack of cigarettes, or five gallons of gas. After 35 years in the mines and suffering black lung disease, he retired in 1960 and began to draw and paint in earnest.

Primarily, Savitsky’s pictures depicted the life and times of the coal miners, their families and life in the rural villages. His works present guileless views of his surroundings and people he knew best. With charm and warm humor, he portrayed what was close to his heart and soul. His presentations are simple but not plain, full not overworked. Scenes of miners, farmers, working men and women, their children, homes and towns may seem somewhat mundane. However, they picture the essence of the American experience and are rich in humanness.

Trying to sell his pictures for $5.00 each, Savitsky offered his works at local events. Then he was discovered by Sterling and Dorothy

Strauser who encouraged him, bought his work and brought it to the attention of other significant artists and collectors.

Savitsky began to attain universal recognition and Herbert Hemphill Jr. used a Savitsky painting for the cover of his fine book Twentieth Century Folk Art and Artists.

“Coal Miner Jack” died in 1991, and today his works are displayed in many well-known collections and museums. These include the Museum of American Folk Art in New York, the Abby Aldridge Rockefeller Collection, Williamsburg, the Milwaukee Museum, and the National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.

Jack Savitsky Seven Coal Miners, 1976 15” x 42”, Oil on board 8151 SAV 235

DOROTHY STRAUSER

Dorothy Strauser was an artist from East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.

Although she says she took an art course for school teachers during her education at Bloomsburg State Teachers Collage, she was essentially a self-taught artist.

Besides being a creative artist in her own right, she was the wife and strongest supporter of her husband, the renowned modernist painter Sterling Strauser. They were both avid art collectors. Furthermore Dorothy was the discoverer, mentor, and best friend to numerous folk artists like Justin McCarthy and Jack Savitsky.

In addition to painting, Dorothy designed and constructed complex, gorgeous hooked rugs. She has a significant following of collectors seeking her works. Her original designs are brightly colored expressions of that traditional American craft displaying unique views of life. Although age and illness took much of her strength during her later years, she continued to paint beautiful watercolors, primarily in floral motifs, which are warm and charming.

Dorothy had one-person shows at the Everhart and Burliuk Museums and exhibited at Bertha Shafer and Frank Lee Galleries and the Museum of American Folk Art in New York City.

Dorothy Strauser passed away in May, 2005, at the age of 96.

Dorothy Strauser Justin’s Wagon, ca 1980’s 13” x 20”, Hooking DS H1

SHANE VAN PELT

Shane Van Pelt recalls his early life as one of “appalling poverty, ignorance, and the need to instill dying traditions at the end of a whip.” His survival response was to draw and write with zeal, about fantasy worlds, expressing himself through music, acting, painting, and being the class clown.

Shane was born December 26, 1974, in the military hospital in Lahnstuhl, West Germany. His mother turned 16 just before his birth. The marriage was brief and near his first birthday, Mother and son headed to her family in Texas where her father was the county sheriff. Childhood memories are not kind: violence, exposure to inappropriate behaviors, arguing parents, and learning the man he thought was daddy was really mom’s second husband.

At about age 10, Shane finally met his father who came to visit before going to jail for 8 years and related that his grandfather was also serving time. He was often on the move, shuttling between periods in Yakima, Washington, and Gallup, New Mexico, as life went from bad to worse. He recalls his 8th grade year as a huge upheaval and being destitute in Washington, living in a tent until government housing became available. Just before his 16th birthday, Shane was kicked out of his home by his mother’s boyfriend, allegedly for being gay. He lived in a foster home, tried to stay in school, finally dropped out. Shane says “I kept my sanity by understanding that I am more than the sum of my experience” and remembering, “That which doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.”

As a youth he would draw pictures, mainly of characters from stories he loved by L. Frank Baum, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Lloyd Alexander. Even then his drawings and books were often confiscated or burned by fanatic religious

family members. So in the autumn of his 16th year, he moved to New Mexico on his own, and soon had his own studio in downtown Gallup. He was able to experience the New Mexico art scene, watching, listening, and learning by osmosis from other artists.

In his early twenties Shane met and married the poet and author Elizabeth Cohen. They moved to New York City in 1996, and here Shane’s art was well received in art spaces of cafes, coffee houses, and book stores. But in 1998 he decided to take a break from showing his drawings and paintings to concentrate on developing a more mature body of work. In 1999, they moved upstate because “we are not raising a daughter with a target on our backs,” and “after 9/11 I knew I made the right choice.”

Now, we are pleased to be presenting the works that Shane has been creating over several years. He has developed his capability and techniques remarkably and focused his inspirations into extraordinarily well crafted paintings. The works are often complex and intriguing, usually topical but subtle.

In a short period he has developed a large following of collectors for his works and is included in the permanent collection of the American Visionary Art Museum.

Shane Van Pelt Untitled, 2010-2015 14” x 18”, Oil on canvas board 8491 SVP 195C

Grey Carter—Objects of Art

1126 Duchess Drive McLean, VA 22102 P: 703-734-0533 — E: info@greyart.com

The Reece Museum, located on the campus of East Tennessee State University, is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

For more information, please visit www.etsu.edu/reece or phone (423) 439-4392. ETSU is an AA/EEO employer.