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Home>Exhibitions>Past>2018>Outliers and American Vanguard Art

# Outliers and American Vanguard Art

January 28 – May 13, 2018East Building, Concourse Galleries

Horace Pippin, *School Studies*, 1944, oil on canvas, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Meyer P. Potamkin, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art

**This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery.**

 Self-taught artists—variously termed folk, primitive, visionary, naïve, and outsider—have played a significant role in the history of modernism, yet their contributions have been largely disregarded or forgotten. Again and again in the United States during the past century, vanguard artists found affinities and inspiration in the work of their untutored, marginalized peers and became staunch advocates, embracing them as fellow artists. Though this encouraged museums to bring their work to broad public view, institutions that complied usually did so without contesting the divide between those at the center (including the vanguard) and those on its periphery (including the autodidact).

*Outliers and American Vanguard Art* focuses on three periods over the last century when the intersection of self-taught artists with the mainstream has been at its most fertile. It is the first major exhibition to explore how those key moments, which coincided with periods of American social, political, and cultural upheaval, challenged or erased traditional hierarchies and probed prevailing assumptions about creativity, artistic practice, and the role of the artist in contemporary culture. Bringing together some 250 works in a range of media, the exhibition includes more than 80 schooled and unschooled artists and argues for a more diverse and inclusive representation in cultural institutions and cultural history.

#AmericanOutliers

Outliers and American Vanguard Art
Index of American Design, George Constantine (American, active c. 1935), *Carousel Horse*, c. 1939, watercolor, graphite, and colored pencil on paperboard, National Gallery of Art, Washington

Outliers and American Vanguard Art
Elie Nadelman (American, born Poland, 1882–1946), *Two Acrobats*, 1934, glazed ceramic, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, Gift of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, 1966

Outliers and American Vanguard Art
John Kane (American, born Scotland, 1860–1934), *Self-Portrait*, 1929, oil on canvas over composition board, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Fund, 1939. Digital image ©The Museum of Modern Art / Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY

Outliers and American Vanguard Art
Bill Traylor (American, 1854–1949), *Men Drinking, Boys Tormenting, Dogs Barking*, c. 1939–1942, opaque watercolor on card with dark gray prepared surface, Collection of Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz, Promised Gift to the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Outliers and American Vanguard Art
Jacob Lawrence (American, 1917–2000), *Sidewalk Drawings*, 1943, gouache on paper, Collection of Shahara Ahmad-Llewellyn. Image ©2017 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Outliers and American Vanguard Art
Horace Pippin (American, 1888–1946), *Interior*, 1944, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Meyer P. Potamkin, in Honor of the 50thAnniversary of the National Gallery of Art

Outliers and American Vanguard Art
Marsden Hartley (American, 1877–1943), *Adelard the Drowned, Master of the “Phantom,”* c. 1938–1939, oil on board, The Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Bequest of Hudson D. Walker from the Ione and Hudson D. Walker Collection

Outliers and American Vanguard Art
William Edmondson (American, 1874–1951), *Angel,*c. 1931, limestone, Robert M. Greenberg Collection

Outliers and American Vanguard Art
Joseph Yoakum (American, 1890–1972), *Briar Head Mtn of National Park Range of Bryce Canyon National Park near Hatch, Utah U.S.A.*, c. 1969, blue-black and black ballpoint pen and colored pencil on paper, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of the Collectors Committee and the Donald and Nancy de Laski Fund

Outliers and American Vanguard Art
Barbara Rossi (American, born 1940), *Rose Rock*, 1972, acrylic on Plexiglas panel, artist’s frame, Courtesy of the Artist and Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago

Outliers and American Vanguard Art
Edgar Tolson (American, 1904–1984), *Cain Going into the World*, from the Fall of Man series, 1970, carved wood with nails, paint, graphite, marker, and glue, Milwaukee Art Museum, The Michael and Julie Hall Collection of American Folk Art. Photo: Courtesy Milwaukee Art Museum

Outliers and American Vanguard Art
James “Son Ford” Thomas (American, 1926–1993), *Untitled*, 1988, unfired clay, paint, human teeth, rocks, Souls Grown Deep Foundation, Atlanta, from the William S. Arnett Collection

Outliers and American Vanguard Art
Sister Gertrude Morgan (American, 1900–1980), *Revelation 7. chap*, c. 1970, paint on wood, Courtesy of The Museum of Everything, London

Outliers and American Vanguard Art
Betye Saar (American, born 1926), *Indigo Mercy*, 1975, mixed media, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, Gift of the Nzingha Society, Inc.

Outliers and American Vanguard Art
James Castle (American, 1899–1977), *Untitled (Shed Interior with Pictures on Display)*[recto], no date, found paper, soot and saliva, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of James Castle Collection and Archive, and Acquisition with Bunny and William Cafritz

Outliers and American Vanguard Art
Matt Mullican (American, born 1951), *Three Suitcases of Love, Truth, Work and Beauty*, 2006, nine white cotton sheets each mounted with nine ink on paper drawings housed in an orange custom-built trunk accompanied by two pillows in pillowcases, Courtesy of the Artist and Christine Burgin

Outliers and American Vanguard Art
Lonnie Holley (American, born 1950), *The Boneheaded Serpent at the Cross (It Wasn’t Luck)*, 1996, found metal, bones, dried flowers, Souls Grown Deep Foundation, Atlanta, from the William S. Arnett Collection

Outliers and American Vanguard Art
Lee Godie (American, 1908–1994), *Prince Charming*, c. 1975–1980, paint, ink, and gelatin silver print on canvas, Don Howlett and Lisa Stone

Outliers and American Vanguard Art
Eugene von Bruenchenhein (American, 1910–1983), *Untitled (Marie)*, c. 1943–1960, gelatin silver print, John Michael Kohler Arts Center Collection, Sheboygan

Outliers and American Vanguard Art
Rosie Lee Tompkins (American, 1936–2006), *Untitled*, 1986, velvet and velveteen (quilted by Irene Bankhead in 1990), Collection of Eli Leon

Outliers and American Vanguard Art
Alan Shields (American, 1944–2005), *Shape-Up*, 1976–1977, acrylic and thread and beads on canvas belting (double-sided), The Drawing Room Gallery, East Hampton. Photo by Gary Mamay

Outliers and American Vanguard Art
Judith Scott (American, 1943–2005), *Untitled*, 2004, fiber and mixed media, Courtesy of The Museum of Everything, London

**Organization:** The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

**Sponsors:** The exhibition is made possible by a generous gift from the Smith-Kogod Family.

**Passes:** Admission is always free and passes are not required

**Attendance:** 62, 362

**Catalog:**Outliers and American Vanguard Art. By Lynne Cooke et al. Washington, D.C. : National Gallery of Art, 2017. 

**Brochure:** Outliers and American Vanguard Art: National Gallery of Art, January 28 - May 13, 2018

**Other venues:** High Museum of Art, Atlanta, June 24–September 30, 2018Los Angeles County Museum of Art, November 18, 2018–March 18, 2019

Biographies of the Artists

Press release

Diamonstein-Spielvogel Lecture SeriesZoe LeonardJanuary 28, 2018, 2:00East Building Auditorium

ConcertSybarite5January 28, 2018, 3:30West Building, West Garden Court

Film SeriesAvant-Garde to Underground: Outliers and Film, Part OneVarious timesFebruary 3 – March 16, 2018East Building Auditorium

Public SymposiaBoundary Trouble: The Self-Taught Artist and American Avant-GardesFebruary 16, 2:00 to 5:00February 17, 10:00 to 5:00East Building Auditorium

Film SeriesAvant-Garde to Underground: Outliers and Film, Part TwoVarious timesApril 7 – May 13, 2018East Building Auditorium

                  - Avant-Garde to Underground: Outliers and Film
                  -                                     Audio, Released:                                    August 21, 2018, (48:15 minutes)                                
                  - Maruja Mallo’s “Sewers and Belfries” (c. 1929-1932)
                  -                                     Audio, Released:                                    July 31, 2018, (27:08 minutes)                                
                  - Avant-Garde to Underground: Outliers and Film
                  -                                     Video, Released:                                    July 24, 2018, (48:15 minutes)                                
                  - Differing, Drawn: A Conversation with Lynne Cooke and Darby English
                  -                                     Audio, Released:                                    June 12, 2018, (62:34 minutes)                                
                  - Diamonstein-Spielvogel Lecture Series: Zoe Leonard
                  -                                     Audio, Released:                                    April 3, 2018, (46:54 minutes)                                
                  - Introduction to the Exhibition-Outliers and American Vanguard Art
                  -                                     Video, Released:                                    February 20, 2018, (64:04 minutes)                                
                  - Diamonstein-Spielvogel Lecture Series: Zoe Leonard
                  -                                     Video, Released:                                    February 13, 2018, (46:54 minutes)                                
                  - Introduction to the Exhibition-Outliers and American Vanguard Art
                  -                                     Audio, Released:                                    February 6, 2018, (64:04 minutes)                                
                  - Lonnie Holley
                  -                                     Video, Released:                                    January 23, 2018, (18:47 minutes)                                
                  - Press Event: Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe and Outliers and American Vanguard Art
                  -                                     Audio, Released:                                    January 23, 2018, (37:12 minutes)                                

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