I have made two earlier posts either about or prompted by the books of
Elinor Lander Horwitz who published several books on the subjects of Appalachian Folk Art and/or American Folk Art. Elinor Lander Horwitz, who wrote numerous books on several topics, spent a great deal of time in the 1970's traveling across the United States with her two sons who were both highly skilled photographers meeting, interviewing, and photographing American Folk Artists and their works. I assume also that based on the depth and breadth of her interest in and knowledge about folk art Elinor Lander Horwitz must have owned a large collection of folk art. The book which is the subject of this blog post has individual chapters about 10 folk painters, 6 folk wood carvers, and 6 individuals whom she described as "total environmentalists". A blogger named Jim Linderman has also
blogged about Horwitz and this book. The amount of work, time, travel, and expenditures which went into the creation of Horwitz's books about American and Appalachian Folk Art was very extensive and no doubt expensive. The book has 143 pages, 22 chapters each of which profiles a single folk artist. Every one of these people was a unique creator in a greater world of folk art which is also quite unique in both the singular and plural manifestations. Due to the period in which the book was researched, written, and published,the 1970's, I suspect that all, or nearly all of the artists profiled are now dead. I will briefly describe what this book has taught me about a few of them whom I consider the most interesting although I have to admit that I would have loved to have known them all. One or two, maybe less than a handful of the artists, may well have been deceased before Horwitz wrote the book. Sister Gertrude Morgan was an African American Folk Artist and street preacher in New Orleans. Clementine Hunter was also an African American Folk artist who spent her life as a servant on Melrose Plantation in central Louisiana. At the plantation, this illiterate African American cook was exposed to the French painter Francois Mignon and his work, and stated she thought she could "mark a painting" too. After seeing one or more of her unique works of African American life in the early twentieth century, Mignon began to mentor her and provide her with paints and other materials. It is possible today that she is now more famous than her mentor. Hattie Bruner was a Caucasian antique dealer in Pennsylvania Dutch country who grew up poor and only became a painter in her late sixties. She painted wonderful pictures of life in the country side around where she had grown up in an older, more quaint time. Miles Carpenter in Western Virginia was a seller of watermelons and other produce who bacan carving and selling wooden copies of his melons and then branched out to other subject matter for the rest of his life. Edward Ambrose was a Virginia carpenter who developed a sideline of carving small objects of all kinds and then creating much larger tableau of them such as country stores, blacksmith shops, and a duck decoy maker's workshop. In Yorktown, Virginia, Walter Flax was a socially isolated African American man who had desired to go to sea but lived his entire life without ever seeing the ocean and spent years decorating the property on which he lived with his ships made of whatever salvaged materials he could find in the area around his two room shack. Perhaps the most unique of these folk artists was Creek Charlie, Charlie Fields, who lived in a house which he covered with multicolored polka dots and filled with numerous polka dot painted objects in every inch of his residence. On Sundays, he welcomed anyone who wished to visit him to come to his home for conversation and friendship. His little polka dotted farm house is the cover photo of Horwitz's book. Jim Colclough was a Californian whose home was taken by the highway department under eminent domain which caused him to begin to protest the government via his folk art constructions of often animated figures carved from wood and equipped with cranks or other devices to cause them to move in unique ways. His probable favorite of these constructions was of two men, one of whom represented the government of California, and the other who represented others such as Colclough who had been adversely affected by government actions. When the crank is turned to animate the piece the representation of the state of California holding the representation of the victims of the state shakes that figure up and down to shake him loose from his money and/or property. The title of that piece is "Helping Man Decide Sell Home for Highway". I have to say that Colclough is probably my favorite of all the artists who are subjects of the book. This is a wonderful book to read and learn about more than 20 of the prominent American Folk Artists of the early to middle twentieth century. It can usually be found on most internet based used book websites. You will enjoy getting to know these unique and uniquely productive Americans.
