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Justin McCarthy Blond Beauty Self-Taught American Folk Artist



Justin McCarthy "Blond Beauty" Self-Taught American Folk Artist Crayon mounted on wallpaper scraps c. 1920 (Illustrated in the catalog Justin McCarthy Allentown Art Museum 1985.
Collection Jim Linderman

Folk Art Environment Vernacular Architecture Photograph Anonymous



Folk Art Environment Vernacular Architecture Photograph Anonymous.  A grotto-like installation around living quarters.  No date.  Thanks to BOX LOT on Facebook.
See also the 250 page book In Situ: American Folk Art in Place by Jim Linderman

Not Available on Trivago! Vintage Hotel Snapshot of Uncle Sam and his Cabins


No way to compare rates for this patriotic "no tell hotel" once operating somewhere in America....(Or Canada.  See comment at end of post)

Vintage anonymous snapshot, no date. Collection Jim Linderman 
See also IN SITU-AMERICAN FOLK ART IN PLACE

Folk Art Figural Ice Sculpture in Minnesota 1937



An interesting folk art sculpture made from SNOW in St. Paul, Minnesota 1937.  The creation even shows a pair of folk art portraits on the wall!  Figural snow and ice sculpture have been staples of the St. Paul Winter Sports Carnival since 1885, when the city decided to create an ice palace while the prominent Montreal, Canada festival was on lock down for a smallpox outbreak!

An ephemeral folk art sculpture which has melted away.

Many other images of the festival are collected by the Minnesota History Center HERE but this one does not appear.


St. Paul Winter Sports Carnival 1937 Real Photograph Post Card collection Jim Linderman

Similar examples of unusual folk art and sculpture appears in the recent 250 page book IN SITU: AMERICAN FOLK ART IN PLACE by Jim Linderman.  Available in affordable ebook and paperback HERE.

Large Folk Art Carving / Sculpture Articulated Man with Big Feet and Little Hands.


Large Folk Art Carving / Sculpture Articulated Man with Big Feet and Little Hands.  Nearly 22 inches tall.  Figure is wired to "walk" when cranked.  Circa 1940? 
Collection Jim Linderman

Make-Do Primitive Folk Art one drawer Stand / Desk in Original Paint Antique


A beautiful Antique Make-Do Primitive Folk Art one drawer Stand / Desk in Original Paint.  The wood came from a crate used to ship "Noiseless" matches, and the legs are wood branches.  With characteristics of a twig stand, but heightened by original paint in a lovely Green / Robin's egg blue.
34 inches tall.  

Collection Jim Linderman

Victor Joseph Gatto Nude Woman Oil Painting on Board American Outsider Artist



"Most of Gatto's paintings—scenes of everyday life in New York, exotic cultures, historical events, and tropical episodes —are packed with endless detail built up with many layers of minute brushstrokes. Gatto, a bachelor and a former featherweight boxer, lived with his widowed stepmother in the section of New York known as "Little Italy." Painters Elaine and Willem De Kooning lived in the next apartment in the late 1930s, and Elaine De Kooning and other artists encouraged Gatto's painting. His work received critical acclaim through several exhibitions in New York galleries during the 1940s and 1950s, his most productive period."  Lynda Roscoe Hartigan Made with Passion: The Hemphill Folk Art Collection in the National Museum of American Art (Washington, D.C. and London: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990)

Oil on Board c. 1950 Collection Jim Linderman

Gatto in the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Gatto papers at Syracuse University  

The Art and Times of Victor Joseph Gatto in the Clarion 1988
Text in full begins on page 58 HERE

How to Cook with Spirits Vernacular Photograph



How to Cook with Spirits Rotary Club Gaggle of Goblins
1946 
Books and Affordable Ebooks by the author of Dull Tool Dim Bulb HERE

Winner! Buffalo Bill Folk Art made from 4,000 inches of Crepe Paper !



First prize winner May Hauser poses with her folk art Buffalo Bill sculpture made from a coat hanger and 4,000 inches of twisted crepe paper.  

Original Press Photograph 1946 Collection Jim Linderman

Sugar Ray Robinson and the Great Boxers in Watercolor








Sugar Ray Robinson was good.  He entered professional boxing with an 85 - 0 record as an amateur.  Nearly half of those 85 fights ended with a knockout in the first round. Credit where due, I guess...is that he invented the posse.  The entourage.  Everybody wanted to be in Sugar Ray's camp.  I am sure all the fighters painted here have similar stories.  I always hated Leroy Neiman and his garish sports paintings, but these are great.  A young, aspiring illustrator named "J. Gallagher" did them around 1950, but that's all I know about him.

Watercolor Paintings of the Greatest Boxers by J. Gallagher, circa 1950 Collection Jim Linderman

Keychain Dummy Ventriloquist Head



Keychain Dummy Ventriloquist Head circa 1960?  Eyes move back and forth, Jaw opens to yap. Collection Jim Linderman

African American Hero of Sport Babs Wingo the Wrestler


The star here is Babs Wingo.  I am not sure if women wrestlers ever really took off, not being a fan of the sport today.  Mostly grown men in superhero costumes playing to an audience with limited education.  But I would have gone to see Babs.

Babs Wingo was no better at faking a move than the male performers, but she was out there with a few of her sisters.  What a phenom.  Her wrestling career was in the early 1950s.  At time when African-Americans were segregated and abused, Babs was traveling on the road and climbing into the ring.  One article from the time calls her and her tag team "grunters" but all the reviews were great.  "Girls please crowd at wrestling show with hold galore" reads one. What a show!

Babs apparently weighed in at 150 pounds.  Only 5' 3" and just 21 at the time.  She also painted.  I'd love to see some of her paintings.  Coming from New Orleans, she would possibly have seen painters lining Jackson Square with work for sale.

Did Babs wrestle in heels?  Hmm.

Life is good with diversity, even in the ring.  Babs blazed trails.
Here is a time capsule film.  It's great

Detail from a recently discovered wrestling poster c. 1950 Collection Jim Linderman 

Turntable Mix Master Opera Beats?



Original Press Photograph, no date.  Collection Jim Linderman