Fantasic Outsider Art Black Americana Folk Art OOB Portrait

Signed T Blum '65

Circa 1965: This wonderful 16" x 20" outsider folk art portrait housed in its orginal 23" x 27" pine frame depicts a young African American girl in a pink dress with pink ribbons in her hair and a gold cross around her neck. Found in a farmhouse in Southwestern Indiana between Terre haute and Vincennes, this painting was created in 1965 when the civil rights movement was heating up in the cities across America. Note that this painting is not a depiction of stereotypical black Americana but is that of a young Christian black child with a surprised, yet sad and almost frightened expression on her innocent face, making this work reminiscent of the black church bombings happening in the 1960s American South. This finely done oil on board also hearkens both the complexity of Cezanne's island portraits and the violent naivete of Jean Dubuffet's brute art.