Mose Tolliver; Guardian obit (folk-painter)
Hyfler/Rosner
African-American folk painter who was taken up by the US art
establishment
Sue Steward
Tuesday December 12, 2006
Guardian
The art of African-Americans from the south tends to be
relegated to the categories of "folk", "naive", or the
eponymous "outsider", which says more about the artists'
social status than the quality of their works. Mose
Tolliver, who has died of pneumonia in his eighties, is a
quintessential example. But unlike the many unknowns in
these categories, Tolliver successfully penetrated America's
art institutions, and his work is now highly collectable.
Born to sharecropper parents in the small community of
Pintala, south of Montgomery, Alabama, Tolliver was one of
12 children. His life story reads a little like the classic
southern bluesmen biographies. A dyslexic, who spent few
years at school, he began working as a gardener before the
family moved to Montgomery and he joined a shoe-making
factory. A machine accident in the early 1960s crushed both
feet and left him disabled. But the accident brought
unimagined dividends after the factory owner encouraged him
to paint.
By then he was married to Willie Mae, had 14 children and
lived in a house in a rundown part of Montgomery, once home
to Zelda Fitzgerald's family. His lack of art training or
access to materials demanded imagination. His canvases were
offcuts of wood and his chosen medium was discarded house
paint, and remained so throughout his life. Tolliver became
obsessed, painting every day on his porch and hanging
finished works from trees, with price tags of a dollar or
two. Occasionally, he sold them to passers-by, distinctive
interpretations of everyday subjects - animals, trees,
fruits and loopy, cartoon-like human figures. He signed them
"Mose T", the "s" drawn in reverse, reflecting his dyslexia.
From the beginning, Tolliver possessed a style which
involved an almost minimalist use of colour backgrounds to a
usually single subject. He painted fast, up to 10 works a
day, and revealed confident strokes in the smooth outlines
of his "dinosaur birds", slithering lizards and strange
humans.
While Tolliver's early works focused on everyday things,
they later spun into fantasy. Female characters with titles
such as "Jock Jack Suzy Satisfying her own Self" became
increasingly erotic. His recurring "Moose Ladies" (also
called "Ladies on Scooters") had huge, smooth, moon faces,
and their legs spread-eagled in great arcs, left their
genitals hovering over a phallic shape supported by a
trolley on wheels.
The patronage of local writer and collector Anton Haardt
(author of Mose T from A to Z - the Folk Art of Mose
Tolliver) in the 1970s, led to Tolliver's first exhibition,
in 1981, at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Art, and his
inclusion in the landmark Black Folk in America: 1930-1980,
at the Smithsonian Institute's Corcoran Gallery in
Washington a year later. The Washington Post described his
works' "astonishing beauty ... objects of such power ...
radiant rightness ... evocative original and memorable".
The show registered both Tolliver and African-American folk
art on mainstream radar, and, as a result, his home drew
collectors from afar. Depending on his level of inebriation
and whether Willie Mae was around, they would leave with
paintings as gifts or having paid realistic prices. By the
time of Willie Mae's death in 1991, Tolliver was a
relatively wealthy local celebrity, and he let his passion
for nightclubs and cars run free.
By then, he painted sitting on his bed, with the wood on his
lap and paint around his feet. During a visit in the 1990s
to his dark-walled room, which was virtually empty of
furniture, I was dazzled by the paintings. Like
stained-glass windows, they led into the imagination of this
mysterious man whose quiet painting mode and tranquil
imagery contrasted with his nightlife.
During the 1990s, Tolliver's daughter, Annie, began painting
with a style derived from her father's, but sweeter. He
allegedly encouraged other offspring to add to or finish
works, which he then signed, leading to consternation among
dealers who trade his paintings for six-figure sums. Today,
they are found in many American museum collections, most
notably, in the American Folk Art Museum, New York.
He is survived by 12 children.
· Mose Tolliver, artist, born 1919 or 1920; died October 10
2006