liberty.! african american artists

The African-American artists of the southern states of the USA—for a long time the stepchildren of art history—were the focus of the exhibition liberty.! in 2010. The descendants of slaves developed, in the 20th century, artistic styles that had scarcely been seen in Europe up to then.

Bill Traylor was probably the most recognized of these artists. He did not begin drawing until the age of 80—after a 70-year working life first embarked on as a slave on a plantation.  

Other representatives were Mary T. Smith, who had commenced her artistic activity by painting on her fence; and, further, Purvis Young and William Hawkins. In the USA, these artists are categorized under “self-taught art”. Others describe them as “outsider artists”. Among other institutions, their works are collected by the American Folk Art Museum, to which many local art-lovers gift or endow works for its collection. The works exhibited in this show liberty.!, though, originated from private collections in New York City and Chicago. The testimonies of an artistic creation that is as self-confident as it is touching could thus be seen on a large scale in Austria.

Artists: William Hawkins, Mary T. Smith, Bill Traylor, Joseph E. Yoakum, Purvis Young.