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Woodie LongAlabama (1942-2009) “Long grew up in a family of twelve in a racially mixed sharecropping community in Plant City, Florida. His exuberant paintings conjure up the simple joys of kite flying, bike riding, jumping on grandma's bed and dancing to dizzied exhaustion with siblings and friends. His paintings express a blissfully uncontrived point of view about racial unity." Long lead a colorful but difficult life which included sharecropping and itinerant labor. He spent much of his adult life as a professional painter before accidentally becoming one of the most widely collected Folk artists in America. It is likely that Woodie Long has sold over 20,000 original paintings. Howard Finster produced over 40,000 works. Purvis Young and Jim Sudduth also come to mind as extremely prolific self-taught artists. Long’s job in mid-life took him to Saudi Arabia where he met his wife, Dot. He became acquainted with the Prince, now King while painting the Palace and other Royal buildings. Dot and Woodie subsequently traveled for a year in Southeast Asia before they returned to south Alabama to be near family. Long began his memory paintings in 1988 while recuperating from a respiratory illness brought on by long term exposure to house paint. Long was a great story teller about his life. He had often been encouraged by family and friends to write some of his stories. At the time he began his paintings, Long was only marginally literate. He saw his wife’s hobby watercolor set as a good way to record his memories. He knew how to handle a brush and had experimented occasionally with painting. He said that on jobs he often painted a large picture on each wall before repainting it. His wife, who has a good eye, thought his first paintings had merit. She showed them to her art class professor. Thus, Woodie became introduced to the regional vernacular art scene. I presented an early solo exhibition titled, “Woodie Long’s South” in 1991 at my gallery in Winston-Salem. It was reviewed by Tom Patterson in the Winston-Salem Journal (10-6-91). Long had developed his own style before being exposed to the work of other regional artists whom he met when he became invited to the annual Kentuck Festival. Long’s approach and subject matter overlaps that of predecessor Clementine Hunter. Though, their work is significantly different in most respects. Long applied paint in a direct manner like a calligrapher, seldom retouching. Usually he created figures out of quick brushstrokes and then filled in background with solid shades. There is a wide range of quality in the oeuvre of prolific self-taught artists because almost all of their output, however gestural or experimental, tends to make its way to the public. Long’s best work has a lively presence manifested by an inventive use of pattern, color and balance. He had great perception of human posture and was able to create a sense of movement out of deft brushstrokes. Christopher Payne, an art professor at Huntingdon College noted, “Mr. Long’s rich subjects and keen visual balance appear so natural, as if they are taken for granted. Their positions (of figures) recall Matisse and Chagall but their happenstance is all Woodie Long.” In his art, Long can make even the hardest circumstances seem idyllic, such as his depictions of picking cotton. Perhaps the reason his paintings have such wide appeal is because they are bright, carefree and cheerful. As Mose Tolliver once said to me about his friend, "Woodie is just full of fun".
George Jacobs Self-Taught Art |
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