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Harold Theodore (Ted) Gordon (American, born 1924)
Theodore Harold (Ted) Gordon’s biographer Roger Cardinal explains the intensity of Gordon’s pictorial expression as “a short-circuit in the creative current, whereby the self-taught draftsman, absorbed by his image-making, becomes a perpetual motion machine, an instrument of what the Surrealists called ‘automatism’ or spontaneous, unmonitored creation.” A government worker for decades, Gordon avoids most social relations, preferring life at home with his wife and the solitary and [...] Click here to continue reading.
Howard Finster (American, 1916-2001)
“The Lord spoke and he said: Give up the repair of lawn mowers; Give up the repair of bicycles; Give up sermons; Paint my pictures… And that’s what I done.” Howard Finster is among the most prolific and best-known outsider artists. He turned his house in Georgia into “Paradise Garden”, a venue to display his vision of preaching through art, with a constant display of work for sale to the [...] Click here to continue reading.
Daniel E. (Don) Rohrig (American, 1911-1969)
Daniel Rohrig never trained as an artist. As a boy in his childhood hometown of Harmony, Indiana, he would use photos of movie stars and actors from film magazines as models for his drawings and paintings. Serving in the Pacific during WWII, Rohrig became fascinated with the art and culture of Japan and turned his attention to the depiction of Japanese movie stars. He envisions his favorite Japanese [...] Click here to continue reading.
Clementine Hunter (1887 to 1988)
Clementine Hunter (pronounced Clementeen) was born to Creole parents, Antoinette Adams and Janvier Reuben, in late December of 1886 or early January of 1887 at Hidden Hill Plantation near Cloutierville, Louisiana. Hunter would never learn to read or write, later saying she only had about ten days of schooling, and was put to work in the fields when she was very young. At 15, she left Hidden Hill, which [...] Click here to continue reading.
Willie Massey (American, 1906 to 1990)
Willie Massey is a self-taught artist from Kentucky who spent his life as a tenant dairy farmer. He made only utilitarian objects before his wife’s death in 1955. After, he began to make sculptures, which he called “tricks”. He fashioned animals and birds, farm equipment, birdhouses and airplanes from found objects and repurposed material. He would also buy stretched canvases and paint on the backs to create pre-made [...] Click here to continue reading.
Adolf Wolfli (Swiss, 1864 to 1930)
The Swiss artist Adolf Wolfli is considered among the greatest exemplars of Art Brut. Born in poverty, orphaned before the age of ten, mistreated and abused in a series of foster homes, by the time he was in his twenties he had been twice arrested for attempted sexual abuse. After the second arrest in 1895 he was sent to Waldau Clinic in Bern, Switzerland, where he was diagnosed [...] Click here to continue reading.
Cartouche – Definition
The decorative arts world has many “squishy” and vague vocabulary words, but few are “squishier” and vaguer than cartouche. Originally, the term comes from Egyptology and is used to describe a oval enclosing hieroglyphics and having a horizontal line at one end. (The line denotes royalty.) The oval had significance not unlike that of a closed circle, in that it was believed that an oval around a person’s name provided protection [...] Click here to continue reading.
Bee Skeps
The typical period bee skep was made by coiling a rope of rye straw and interweaving it with oak splints. Inside the skep there are two crossed wooden slats that help give support to the hive and for the bees to attach their combs. A hole at the top serves as the entrance to the skep.
The basket-like bee skep was developed in Europe and brought to North America by European immigrants. [...] Click here to continue reading.
Estate of Peter L. Rosenberg of Vallin Galleries, Wilton Connecticut
Discerning collectors, dealers, and museum curators of Asian art regularly made pilgrimages to a charming 18th century saltbox home in Wilton, Connecticut: Vallin Galleries. Owned and operated by Peter L. Rosenberg for nearly thirty years until his sudden death in December of 2013, Vallin Galleries was widely regarded as an outstanding source for the best of Asian art and antiques. Skinner is proud to [...] Click here to continue reading.
Zoar
In the 1810s, a group of German religious separatists left Wurttemberg in what is now southwestern Germany, after several decades of separation from the primary church in the region, the Lutheran Church. After years of persecution and oppression which included imprisonment and property seizures, the separatists, under the leadership of Joseph Bimeler (sometimes Baumeler), decided to flee to the United States in the hopes that they could establish a new community there.
One [...] Click here to continue reading.
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