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JIMMIE LEE SUDDUTH CREATES HIS PAINTINGS ON PLYWOOD BOARDS AT HIS SMALL HOME IN FAYETTE, ALABAMA. BORN IN 1910, HE TAUGHT HIMSELF TO USE SUCH MATERIALS FOR "PAINT" AS MUD, PLANTS (TURNIP GREENS, WATERMELON VINE AND BERRIES), SUGAR, COFFEE GROUNDS AND TOBACCO. IN RECENT YEARS SUDDUTH HAS COME TO USE HOUSE PAINT FOR COLOR, WITH OCCASIONAL TOUCHES OF GLITTER. HIS UNIQUE APPROACH TO BOTH LIFE AND ART HAS BEEN FEATURED AT THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION AND ON A 1980 SEGMENT OF NBC'S TODAY SHOW. HE IS INCLUDED IN ALABAMA ART 2000, AN INTERNATIONAL TOURING PROJECT THAT HIGHLIGHTS WORK OF 13 OF THE STATE'S ARTISTS.
SUDDUTH'S THEMES INCLUDE ARCHITECTURAL FORMS, ANIMALS AND HUMAN FIGURES. HE HAS PAINTED THE STATUE OF LIBERTY, SEATED INDIANS, SELF PORTRAITS AND MANY RENDITIONS OF HIS DOG TOTO. IN 1995 THE SOCIETY FOR FINE ARTS OF THE COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA, PRESENTED HIM WITH THE ALABAMA ARTS AWARD. THIS WAS PRESENTED TO HIM BECAUSE "HE HAS CONTRIBUTED SUBSTANTIALLY TO AN IMPORTANT MOVEMENT IN THE LATE 20TH CENTURY AMERICAN ART" AND BECAUSE HE "HAS BROUGHT MANY AMERICANS A REFRESHING PERSPECTIVE ON SOUTHERN LIFE AND CREATIVITY.
As a child, Jimmy Lee Sudduth spent many hours accompanying his mother, an herbal healer, through the woods as she gathered plants. To amuse himself one day he picked up some mud and painted a face on a tree. Three weeks later, he was amazed to find it still intact. Though today he has added acrylic paint to his paintings, Sudduth still uses mud mixed with sugar water to create his simple but endearing paintings of people and animals.Sudduth's work has been exhibited extensively by museums and galleries since 1970, when he was discovered by Jack Black, Director of the Fayette Art Museum. In 1976 he was included in The Smithsonian Institution's "Bicentennial Festival of American Folk Life," and two years later the Birmingham Museum of Art mounted an exhibition of his work.
Our Art Gallery also has work by Reverend Howard Finster, Inez Nathaniel Walker, William Edmondson, Thornton Dial, Missionary Mary Proctor, Miz Thang, Nancy Valelly, R A Miller, Jimmy Lee Sudduth, Mose Tolliver, folk pottery and all the great outsiders new or old.
Any and all sales are final - no refunds.
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