Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Baby Centaur and his Friends Sketchbook circa 1910

Baby Centaur and his friends found in a circa 1910 Sketchbook
Collection Jim Linderman

Make Do Wall Hanging Candle Box with two inscised relief carved Nudes Erotic Folk Art

Antique Folk Art Wall Hanging Candle Box with inscised relief carved Nudes
Folk Art Sculpture. Collection Jim Linderman

Eccentric Fashion Drawings Dull Tool Dim Bulb Annual "I'm Not at the Outsider Art Fair" Exhibition

Eccentric Fashion Drawings 1944 (all detail scans) Each 10 x 15 Collection Jim Linderman

I try to post a group of unusual artworks every year around Outsider Art Fair time. Fashion drawings, to my knowledge, haven't yet made an appearance at the Outsider Art Fair yet. These are nice ones.

Art and Photography Books and $5.99 Ebooks by the author are available for preview or purchase HERE

Gruesome Amputation Tableau of Tin Miniature Handmade Figures Walking with Mr. D.

This is a first. Completely made by hand, with an indecipherable signature and no indication of age (but they are old...not 17th century old, but old) a lurid gruesome scene. I think the figures, which are made of lead and tin (all painted by hand and all original) were at one time part of a larger installation or display. A museum of horrors which has closed down? Objects from the former Malcom Forbes toy museum on Fifth Avenue? (If you never saw Malcom Forbes toy collection, you haven't seen a toy collection.) A quite remarkable little nightmare with meticulous construction. I also have what could be called "Walking with Mr. D."

BOOKS AND EBOOKS BY THE AUTHOR HERE

Unknown Jazz Band circa 1930 Any Help out There?

Large 8 x 10 photo I found recently. Early Jazz Band. Can anyone ID for me?

Art Fair Season Help for Hanging Works Salon Style from Big Johann K. Petursson

With art fair season coming up, I have found the solution for your hanging needs. Just watch Johann K. Petursson, a man I was ready to call "The Giant Abe Lincoln of Iceland" after finding this postcard until I looked him up. A wonderful "little" vignette here of the big man hanging modern art.

You never know what a postcard find will lead to. Jóhann Kristinn Pétursson, also known as The Viking Giant, Johann the Giant (Jóhann Risi) and Jóhann Svarfdælingur (February 9, 1913 – November 26, 1984) At peak, he was 7 ft 8 in and weighed over 350 pounds.

Tallest Man in the World Real Photo Postcard signed and dated on reverse 1951 Collection Jim Linderman

BOOK AND $5.99 EBOOKS BY JIM LINDERMAN AVAILABLE HERE

The Story of the Corn 19th Century Folk Art Drawings collection Jim Linderman

When in high school, I was once assigned the task of writing an essay which provided detailed instructions on how to accomplish a task. It was to be an exercise in clarity and procedure.

I chose to provide instructions on how to make popcorn.

This young 19th Century artist has done the same for me, with far greater scope if not clarity, in this pair of drawings. I left out so much. I forgot the scarecrow. The Story of Corn.

Two drawings circa 1890 collection Jim Linderman.

Books and $5.99 Ebooks by Jim Linderman available HERE.

Nice Pants

Galvanized Steel "Divider" Y tube for diverting water. No Date Collection Jim Linderman

NIGHTCLUBBIN' Club DeLisa and the Fifth Avenue Ballroom. Roving Club Photographer on the Scene

Three crusty photographic remnants of the Black and Tan club scene! The Club DeLisa photographs quite likely taken by master photographer Samuel Simmons.

Three original club photographs with original sleeves circa 1950 Collection Jim Linderman
The Birth of Rock and Roll Book by Jim Linderman available HERE

Banner of Heaven and Hellfire Folk Art Hale's Studio Prestonburg Kentucky

Banner of Heaven and Hellfire Hale's Studio Prestonburg Kentucky No Date circa 1930?
Photograph collection Jim Linderman

Hamrick Buys Produce Painted Rooster Folk Art Sign Real Photo Postcard collection Jim Linderman

Hamrick Buys Produce Painted Rooster Folk Art Sign Real Photo Postcard collection Jim Linderman
ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY BOOKS AND $5.99 EBOOKS BY JIM LINDERMAN HERE

First African-American Armed Cross Dressers with a Guitar Pose for the Camera collection Jim Linderman

First African-American Armed Cross Dressers Pose for the Camera?
Even though I suspect the gun, holster and guitar are studio props, you have to GIVE props to this African-American couple who had the nerve to exchange clothes for the photo. It is a man and a woman, as the gentleman in drag has an Adam's apple. The RPPC dates from 1910 to 1930. If they are not using props, this could have been quite a team, musical or criminal. A rare, tough image with lots of cultural resonance today. The first cross dressing African-American photograph, even if done for the photographer only?

Real Photo Postcard with Azo Back circa 1910 - 1930 Unknown location and photographer. Note on reverse Collection Jim Linderman

ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY BOOKS by Jim Linderman (AND $5.99 EBOOKS) are available HERE

Fun at the Midway Funny Foto Studio Playland at the Beach Collection Jim Linderman

Larger than Life Folk Art Clay Head Sculpture Antique

Twice life size folk art clay head. Built up on wood base. No date or signature
Collection Jim Linderman

World War One Straw Human Decoys Fake Encampments with Cannon collection Jim Linderman

Strawmen peer to the sky for enemy planes. A fake encampment

Real Photo Postcard circa 1920 Collection Jim Lindertman

Fat Man Going to Work (Literally, THE Fat Man) Carnival Photograph collection Jim Linderman At the Circus in Black and White

Fat Man Going to Work (Literally, THE Fat Man) Carnival Photograph 1958
collection Jim Linderman

Pair of Jesus Fraktur Drawings and Prayer 19th Century Collection Jim Linderman

Antique Erotic Folk Art Sculpture Carving Baleen or Bone Carved Cigarette Holder Nude Woman

Antique Erotic Folk Art Sculpture Carving Baleen or Bone Carved Cigarette Holder Nude Woman Collection Jim Linderman

Pig Effigy Folk Art Sculpture Carving

Pig Effigy Carved Folk Art Sculpture Collection Jim Linderman

Trained or Chained Pair of Horse Riding Monkeys 1944 At the Circus in Black and White

Riding Monkeys Original Snapshot dated on reverse 1944 Collection Jim Linderman
I have posted some 40 images in the AT THE CIRCUS IN BLACK AND WHITE series.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jim Linderman

"...Linderman is widely regarded as one of the foremost figures in a field of vernacular art collectors working beyond the margins of most institutional axioms and impulses, in what is essentially it's own self-taught art form."
Ursula Magazine Hauser & Wirth 2019

"Linderman produces the most sublime books on dreamy, arcane subjects, sexy stuff, too, all with rare one-of-a-kind images." Craig Yoe 2017

"...disclosing an underground history of American popular culture one oddball tale at a time"
John Strausbaugh in The New York Times

"...one of the blog writers to watch for"
ARTSlant

"...wonderful, extraordinary, fascinating, remarkable and profound" Fans in a Flashbulb International Center of Photography Museum 2016

"Brilliantly Astute, Acerbic and Aesthetic Jim Linderman"
The Museum of Everything 2014

"Dull Tool Dim Bulb is always worth a visit" THINGS Magazine 2016

"...grumpy..." The Austin Chronicle 2014

"Perpetually ahead of the collecting curve...a one man Taschen. An authentically curious individual...diligently archiving the forgotten curiosities of American History"

Emma Higgins in Art Hack May 2012

"Jim Linderman likes Art, Antiques and Photography and his collection of Vernacular Photography, Folk Art, Ephemera and Curiosities is a wonderful place..."
LifeElsewhere with Norman B. 2014

"...collected over the years by Jim Linderman, a character who seems the perfect subject for a Harvey Pekar comic. Linderman treats collecting like a calling, and his finds have a resulting air of authority, stunning in their capture of bygone picturesque moments."
Derek Taylor Dusted

"The pictures, discarded artifacts of ecstatic Americana, come from the stash of Jim Linderman, who in his introduction recalls advice he’s plainly taken to heart: “Collect the heck” out of whatever you find interesting."
Drew Jubera Paste Magazine

"His interest in art is rivaled only by his interest in music, and one expression informs the other. He pursues objects with thoroughness and an innate sense of curiosity..."
Tanya Heinrich Folk Art Magazine

"Linderman acknowledges the obscure at the same time that he elevates it.... His collections tell vast stories in sotto voce, allowing curios and objects shadowed by mainstream culture and ideology to converse and be heard. What we hear is an enormous American sub-culture speaking in forbidden, marginalized languages: stuff discovered boxed in the attic out of embarrassment or zealotry, smutty ash trays crowing next to religious pamphlets, each claiming a part of the complex, sometimes contradictory, always conflicted American imagination, a chaos of memories that will one day vanish."
Joe Bonomo Author of Conversations With Greil Marcus, Jerry Lewis Lost and Found and No Such Thing As Was

"...he's one of the world's greatest pickers."
Brian Wallis in The New York Times

"Documenting--one clipping at a time--the scrapbook of a leg and garter aficionado that was dumpster-dived in Virginia in the 60s" "...an outstanding image-archaeologist who has compiled a shelf-ful of worthy and unique photographic histories."
William Smith Hang Fire Books

"Linderman has a knack for discovering untold stories and introducing them to a wider audience"
Joey Lin Anonymous Works

"Jim Linderman...makes us all look a little puny"
Could it be Madness-this?

"...insatiable collector of ephemera and ringleader behind an incredible circus of blogs — including the treasure trove dull tool dim bulb"
The Cynephile

"Yo no sé ustedes pero creo que es uno de los mejores sitios que he visitado en mucho tiemp"
Color Me in Blog

"...there's something beyond the endless photos and postcards and weird propaganda from another time that he lovingly documents - I think it's the collection as a whole, the portrait of a person fascinated with culture and communication. I have met people like this before, and in reading Dull Tool Dim Bulb I feel I have been lucky enough to meet one more. This site is a goldmine in terms of links..."
The Hyggelic Life October 2009

"Linderman is always on the lookout for the new and exciting"
Chuck and Jan Rosenak Contemporary American Folk Art

"...an amazing collection..."
Revel in New York October 2009

"Jim Linderman has a nice little colllection of interesting books and blogs...But every so often he just loses it."
American Digest March 2010

"FOR MOST OF HIS LIFE, COLLECTOR JIM LINDERMAN has searched high and low for authentic things--unique and special objects that define the artistic culture of the American experience. From folk art to popular culture, from pulp fiction to Delta Blues-- Jim is a walking authority on so many things American they are too numerous to mention. One thing is certain-- his collecting interests are for things that have fallen through the cracks, those things lost and forgotten--the box of material under the table at the flea market booth. If it wasn't for dedicated collectors like Jim Linderman-- so many important objects about our culture would have surely been lost to time and indifference."

"Jim Linderman maintains a most interesting blog about the most amazing things from his collection—a site he calls “Dull Tool Dim Bulb,” the only curse words his father ever uttered. I love it, and read it everyday."
"...an excellent writer and I devour your blog daily. I am impressed at your deep knowledge of things within your niche..."
John Foster Accidental Mysteries

"I am grateful to Jim Linderman for first alerting me to the existence of the 1930s Spiritualist hymn "Jesus is My Air-o-plane."
William Fagaly New Orleans Museum of Art, Author Tools of her Ministry: The art of Sister Gertrude Morgan

"Linderman describes a long gone world...(he) claims not to be a writer but he is most certainly an excellent researcher..."
BOOKSTEVE

"Jim Linderman, King of the Internet Ephemeral Arts"
Spaniel Rage

"Jim is a fantastic historian...show him some love"
Astrid Daley Fringe Pop / Sin-A-Rama

"Almost an experimental narrative"
Idiopath

"He came to us with hundreds of jaw-dropping baptism photos that he'd been collecting for 25 years," Ledbetter explains. "By the time he found us, he'd already done half a lifetime's works, and he trusted us to handle it properly." Lance Ledbetter in Creative Loafing 10/13/11

Fair Use

Though the images, which I have myself largely scanned from my personal collection of photographs and ephemera, some are subject to © by the artist, syndicate that distributed them or otherwise the individual artists. The use here is regardless covered by the U.S. fair use laws because:
1. The image illustrates an educational article; its inclusion in the article adds significantly to understanding the text because it is a historical sample of the art covered in the critical commentary, and shows use of an innovative style. Therefore the image substantially improves the educational value of the article.
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