b-b-bonus this week in outsider art // december sixth
thanks for subscribing and enjoy even more folkartwork newsletter, you deserve it
✌️ every wednesday morning, this bonus newsletter with bonus outsider art content, including show listings, personal collection highlights, and news of the week, will be sent to paid subscribers. The weekly ‘This Week in Outsider Art’ newsletter that goes out every Sunday morning continues to and will always be free of charge — enjoy ✌️
FIND OF THE WEEK
“I’ve owned this painting for several decades, it continues to surprise me every day.” — Frank Maresca
Every now and again, I get cocky, and I think I’ve seen it all. For the past five years, almost every single day I spend at least an hour or two looking at outsider art. So you could say I’ve seen a lot of art! And as the unofficial president of the William Hawkins fan club, I feel like I’ve seen most all of his work. Luckily, every few months the probably official president of the William Hawkins fan club Frank Maresca brings me down about a hundred pegs and reminds me I don’t know anything.
This work shared this week, “Scales of Justice” is mesmerizing. As Frank, one of the guys who sat with Hawkins in the 80’s and watched him work, shared a work he’s had since those days and it completely knocked my socks off and said so himself, “it surprises me every day.” The colors, the imagery, the size and the fact that he changed up the paint (but probably not the brush) mid-way through his signature. No wonder you could stare at this thing every day for years and continue to see new things that blow you away.
Thanks Frank for continuing to unleash your most amazing collection on us.
B-B-BONUS
The one and only Hilma af Klint. Classically trained artist turned visionary. Her works, her story, all are incredibly inspiring. What I would have done to see her collection at the Guggenheim a few years back. While some but not all visionary artists are at some point in time trained artists, they do fit in to the “outsider” art category if we must continue to categorize art here… as there work is guided be something bigger than themselves, and especially the case of Hilma af Klint, their visionary works can rub people the wrong way and leave them on the “outside” looking in to the art world. (See how I landed that plane?!)
Enter one of my favorite collections, the Collection of Mediumistic Art located in Munich, Germany, a private collection and has been compiled by psychologist Elmar R. Gruber over a period of almost fifty years. One of the most unique and inspiring collections around, take a sneak peek at a few of them below.
All artwork is from The Collection of Mediumistic Art, one of the leading collections of its kind, located in Munich, Germany.