In From The Cold

In From The Cold is a celebration of the self-taught brilliance of “outsider” art and artists, a recognition which the world art establishment was reluctant to make many years ago.  Today, the modern art world as a whole recognizes, with high esteem, the achievements of the outsider artist.  Their works have become iconic byproducts of and leave significant legacies to the American art experience itself.  Early on, most of the artists represented in this exhibition lived/worked subserviently, quietly, and anonymously, each possessing a private vision and, most often, began late in their lifetimes creating powerful visual statements about themselves and their surrounding world. Their work displays an intuitive genius unsurpassed by artists within the mainstream, they being beneficiaries of conventional art instruction, art careers and exhibition venues.  Remarkably, the self-taught artist often translated common, yet difficult, early life experiences into amazing individual visual statements of beauty, invention and profound narrative remembrance.  Each of the following artists selected for this exhibition are worthy of the recognition which they now receive world-wide.  All have works which reside in major museums, private collections, galleries, and are now notably included within the pages of world art history.

Henry Darger, Ulysses Davis, Johann Garber, Lee Godie, Jessie  Howard, Mr. Imagination, Frank Jones, Dwight MacIntosh, Simon Sparrow, Clifton Sulzer, Bill Traylor, Eugene von Bruenchenhein, Joseph Yoakum.

Image:  Bill Traylor, untitled