Max Romain Outsider Artist Photographs by Jim Linderman New York 1992
Showing posts with label Outsider Art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Outsider Art. Show all posts
Trench Art with a Twist Hammered copper sculpture made from old copper stills after World War One
Trench Art with a twist, but not all trench art was made in a trench. Generally, the term refers to art sculpture made from expended artillery shell casings. Nothing to do but stay down, cringe at the incoming and hammer copper. However this group of decorative items was made by a different group of soldiers. As noted on the reverse of the image, These fine examples were made by disabled soldiers as they recuperated. The material is taken from the remnants of old copper stills. Prohibition provided the material! World war one ended in 1918. Prohibition started in 1920. Must have been a bitter pill to have fought for your country only to return without having even a beer.
The Trench Art of the Great War website refers to pieces like those above as convalescent soldier art. The Wikipedia entry for Trench Art suggests "Outsider Art" as a related category.
Original undated, anonymous 8 x 10 press photograph circa 1920. No credits on photograph.
Collection Jim Linderman
Anonymous Outsider Art / Art Brut found on the streets of Manhattan
Anonymous Outsider Art / Art Brut found on the streets of Manhattan circa 1985. Now lost. Each was 18 x 24.
Order books and affordable E-books by Jim Linderman HERE
Lonnie Holley Birmingham Alabama Outsider Art Environment Unpublished Photos c.1992
Photographs of Lonnie Holley and his workshop at what has come to be known as the Birmingham Alabama Airport environment. They date to 1992 or so. I believe at the time this was both "studio" and home for the artist.
You'll find dozens of his sculptures (made from scrapped foundry sandstone) and hundreds of painted and shaped works of wire, fabric and detritus. It might look ragged, but every thing was purposeful and in place. Something out of a dream. While chatting and touring with the artist, I realized everything was connected through small caves from which children began to emerge. Beautiful, handsome young children who had been living (or hiding) in their places for safety. Shy at first, they romped like any kids as they became comfortable with my visit.
Holley had purchased the land intending to establish it as a refuge for artistic expression. He was certainly not one short of artistic ideas. Apparently the airport didn't agree and claimed the land. I hope the artist and his family received what was deserved, but it sounded like a land grab at the time. Mr. Holley was and is a genius. This is something I have learned to know and increasingly appreciate over the last 25 years.
Dust to Digital has released several of Mr. Holley's recordings HERE. A feature article was published by The Guardian which tells his personal story in depth.
ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS by Jim Linderman Collection Dull Tool Dim Bulb.
Vintage Amateur Original Drawings for Famous Monsters of Filmland Magazine
Vintage Amateur Original Drawings for Famous Monsters of Filmland Magazine submitted by a boy. Famous Monsters was started in 1958 and ran until 1983 with 191 issues. Later, a revival from 1993 brought it back and it continues today. These drawings were submitted for publication in a "submitted by fans" section of the magazine. While I do not know if any were printed, the editor Forrest J. Ackerman kept this collection for decades in his private collection until passing. There are some 50 drawings which reveal a young talent under the spell of prominent monsters (and monster films) of the 1950s and 1960s.
Collection Jim Linderman / Dull Tool Dim Bulb
Basil Merrett Outsider Art The Religious Series c. 1950 Collection Jim Linderman
Annual I'm not at the Outsider Art Fair 2017 post. Are Cartoonists Outsider Artists? Elizabeth Stohn and Fred Johnson
These drawings were done from 1918 to 1919 by Elizabeth Stohn. Ms Stone was a child at the time, and was something of a "cross-category" artist. Part Schoolgirl art, part naive, part trained (as she had just completed her "art school training" by correspondence school. ) Certainly not what is generally considered "outsider" art, though that term is pretty widely applied as far as I can tell. These are folky and charming, but not really folk art either. Outsider Art? Nah.
While thousands of women studied art and (like Ms. Stohn) aspired to be an artist, even naming early woman artists is hard. They were screwed over ever since they were here in every field. Why should art (or comics, for that matter) be the domain of men? Plus, here is a secret…they were often better than the men and never received the credit. They were lost and laboring as "anonymous" in quilting, needle-point, and other acceptable near domestic arts.
Labels appropriate to Ms. Stohn could maybe include "rebel" too. I have written about her life and how she was one of the first women to use "thought and caption" balloons. That post sorta went mini-viral in the comic book world, being picked up by comic historians and such. The Comics journal linked to it as well. One day I hope to scan her entire "graphic novel" From Poverty to Luxary (sic)
I remember respected art scholar and dealer Randall Morris saying something like "Cartoonists have their own school, they aren't outsider artists" and I don't differ with him. Still there are many standards being applied on the walls of the outsider art fair, and each show will continue the mixed blessing of being labeled as an outsider.
"I know it when I see it" was used to describe pornography by Justin Potter when ruling in a landmark obscenity case heard by the Supreme Court in 1964. I am pretty sure he threw his hands up when he said it. "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it..." he said. We should avoid that esteemed opinion when evaluating outsider art.
A wonderful group of "comic books" were one of discoveries at the last Outsider Art Fair. I'll guess he took some courses too, but it is a guess. Dan Nadel would be the person to ask. I sure would love to see them, but as I say, I wasn't there.
(There was another Johnson (real name Ferd or Ferdinand Johnson) working at the same time in Chicago, and he became quite well-known among other cartoonists. Same fellow? I can't tell…I didn't go go cartoonist school! (joke) It was certainly not the same fellow, but neither of them were being "obsessive" about drawing. They were just doing what comic book artists do. That would be filling page after page with drawings. Ask Gary Panter, a great artist who is not an outsider. He published a massive book containing his sketchbooks. Read the great essay on Frank, the outsider HERE by Dan Nadel. There were other great cartoon artists (Basil Wolverton, Windsor McCay for example) and there were plenty of bizarre comic strip artists who were visionaries. Mr. Nadel knows his stuff…See the magnificent volumes he put together on some HERE. Any library specializing in any art must have these two books. Like the books displayed at the last outsider art fair, he reveals dozens of quirky and magnificently talented artists, be they self-taught or not.
Other articles in the I'm Not at the Outsider Art Fair series are HERE. See also two books on Folk art Outsider art by the writer Jim Linderman HERE and HERE.
Art Car ! You can Come in Praying if this van is Swaying Jesus Freak Van
You can Come in Praying if this van is Swaying Jesus Freak Van circa 1990 original photographs Jim Linderman
Outsider Art African American Yard Show Sculpture Alabama c. 1990 Photographs by Jim Linderman Television in the Driveway
Outsider Art African American Yard Show Sculpture Alabama c. 1990 Photographs by Jim Linderman Television in the Driveway high atop a pole. See also the BOOK and EBOOK by Jim Linderman In-Situ: American Folk and Outsider Art in Place available HERE.
Hypergraphia
Hypergraphia is a disorder in which a compulsive need to write text takes over a person. It appears this fellow has filled a cart with his writings, and is on his way to deliver them to Rome.
Collection Jim Linderman
B E RIDDICK Bizarre African-American Outsider Art of the 1970s
Marker on Flattened Shopping Bags. Virginia.
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