INSIDER / OUTSIDER

i n s i d e r
outsider/>
outsider art fair new york
january 18-21,2018

S T E V E N S . P O W E R S
The definition of Outsider Art is fraught with issues—as online trolls
will attest—and, I will not attempt to define it here. However, to
further confuse the issue, I will bring forth a few of what I would call
“insider/outsider” artists such as Forrest Bess, Frank Overton
Colbert, Ida Jones and John Roeder. Individuals that are hard to
pigeonhole and overlap with Outsider, Folk, Self-taught, and
schooled artists.
Can an artist be an “outsider” if you they had some instruction, but
have a minority’s perspective? Are all outsider artists self-taught? If
they spent time in a mental institution are they automatically an
“outsider?” Can one be an “outsider” if they were on the fringe of
society, but then thrust into the New York gallery scene and
continued to create art that was then for resale? As with most
things, a case-by-case examination and identification of context is
key to aiding any definition (if one must be so defined).
In the following pages, we will present a number of artists and
works of art that overlap, transition or fit by context into this
insider/outsider scheme. In addition, we will have works by
Dilmus Hall, George Morgan, Henry Speller, George Ohr, Eugene
Andolsek, Henry Ray Clark and others.
January 18-21, 2018.
Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 W 18th St, New York, NY 10011
additional show information: outsiderartfair.com
W O R K S O F
A R T
& a m e r i c a n a
109 3rd Place #2, Brooklyn, NY 11231 | 718.625.1715 or 917.518.0809 | stevenspowers.com | member: ADA

Ida Jones (1874-1959)
Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins (detail)
Oil on canvas board
Circa: 1945
Size: 17 1/4" (w) x 13 1/2" (h)

Frank Overton Colbert (1895-1953)
The Trail to Happy Hunting Ground
Oil on canvas board
Circa: 1922
Size: 16" (w) x 14" (h)
Exhibited: Architectural League of
New York, 37th Annual Exhibition,
Fine Arts Building, New York, NY.
February 5 - March 4, 1922 (label on
back). Listed as number 522, page 16
in catalog.
“Indian Folk Lore Pictures,” Montross
Gallery, New York, NY. January 5-20,
1923. Listed as number 11 on
exhibition checklist.
Published: Evening Star (Washington,
District of Columbia), Sunday, March
19, 1922, Page 70. Colbert is shown
in Indian dress with this painting at
lower right.

You likely have not heard of Frank Overton Colbert, and you don’t have to
pretend like you have. I hadn’t nor had any of my colleagues, but when I saw
the burial image on the previous page, I immediately needed to know
everything about it and who painted it—what I learned was extraordinary.
In 1895, Frank Overton Colbert was born to a distinguished line of Chickasaw
Indian leaders in Riverside, Oklahoma. His father, Holmes Colbert, co-wrote
the Chickasaw Nations constitution and was for a time its delegate to DC. His
prosperous father wished for him to pursue politics, however, Colbert was
bitten by art and in 1916 he pursued a path that lead him to explore the
Southwest and the Pacific coast. In 1917, he enlisted in the navy and worked in
the camouflage department. After being discharged, Colbert moved to
Greenwich Village, NYC to get serious about painting.
Upon his arrival in New York,
the roaring twenties had just
begun and artists, writers, and
musicians flocked to the city,
where it was ripe with avantgarde
energy. Colbert being a
Chickasaw Indian brought an
exotic interest into his cadre of
artist friends and provided
authenticity to the “Inje-Inje”
movement his friend, Holger
Cahill was trying to lift off the
ground—which was aimed to be
a “hell-broth of neoprimitivism.”
This exposure found Colbert
exhibiting a series of “Indian
Folk Lore” paintings with the
Photo of Colbert pointing to his work—the painting herein
is to the lower right. The Evening Star (Washington, DC),
March 19, 1922, p. 70.

highly reputable and progressive Montross Gallery in 1921 and 1923.
As was de rigueur for the time, Colbert traveled to Paris in 1923. Though
Colbert exhibited at the Salon d’Automne and later at the Society of
Independent Artists, he never found the success in Paris that he had in NY.
In Paris, Colbert was known as Redfeather, and dressed up as an Indian
stereotype and sold drawings done on butcher’s paper outside the cafes. After a
breakdown and a stay at a sanitarium, he returned to NYC only to continue
having bouts of delusional paranoia. By 1941 he was committed to a VA
Hospital in Fort Lyons, Colorado and died there 12 years later in 1953.
The painting, The Trail to Happy Hunting Ground, shows a traditional open-air,
scaffold burial, popular among a number of North American Indian cultures,
including the Sioux who termed the afterlife
the “happy hunting ground.” The body
is tightly wrapped in cloths and raised
upon a scaffold to protect the deceased
from animals and offered to the “Great
Spirit.” An owl appears in the tree,
camouflaged. The owl was both feared and
revered throughout Native cultures as an
omen of death and one with clear thoughts
and vision—it was also seen as a
messenger between worlds.
Colbert’s whole ouevre deserves fresh eyes
and examination, as he sits on the edge of
many overlapping interests including early
Modernism, Native American fine art and
Outsider Art.
Photo of Native American Burial Site by
Cree Indian Richard Throssel (1882-1933).

Spirit Drawing
Slate, chalk
Circa: 1900
Size: 6 1/4" (w) x 10" (h)
Portrait of a man on slate with a message from
beyond in red chalk. Transcription below.
“Dear Caran(?), Possessor of Earth Life, again I
reach out from the Land of Souls to you my dear ---
of earth, I bring to you the joy and comfort and
health and peace of mind that you need in old age,
but you are just ripening like the beautiful fruit --
and the orchard by and by gravitate to when you
belong to the Shores of Eternal Bliss and happiness,
be of good cheer for I will receive you into
the summer C---- with upon --- and bid you
welcome to our heaven (?) over him and to be again
as our whole family never --- to part. For my love
for you has grown in its purity and as a Husband
and Father I pray aimed a --- for you all angels.
Bless you, for I am always with you, Smith Stehl”

Paul Bowen
Sole Ball
antique shoe leathers, wood, nails
Circa: early 1980’s
Size: 14 1/2" (d)

Forrest Bess (1911 – 1977)
Untitled [Three Figures]
Oil on canvas
Circa: 1946
Size: 16" (w) x 14" (h)
Provenance: Kirk Hopper Fine Art, Parrasch Heijnen Gallery.
In 1946 Forrest Bess found himself as a painter. Although Bess had
produced works in the 1930’s, it was not until 1946 that Bess, at
the urging of his psychiatrist had he began to record the colorful
visions that were troubling him. The visions were likely brought on
from the trauma he suffered from being beaten by a fellow Army
mate as a consequence of his homosexuality. In this year, Bess
produced a wide range of work; representational, abstract and
symbolic paintings. About this period, Bess expressed to his dealer,
Betty Parsons, “Only by painting the goddamned thing out have all
my symptoms of anxiety disappeared.” It was these works that got
him through his PTSD and on his way to the visionary painter he
would become.
Bess’s paintings were an integral part of his being which was
heavily influenced by Carl Jung’s thoughts on symbolism,
Australian aboriginal initiation rites and the belief that the
hermaphrodite was “the desired and intended state of man.” His
commitment to this philosophy culminated in the self-surgery on
his genitals in the late 1950’s.

“All my life I have been an
outsider looking at beauty”
— Forrest Bess to Betty Parsons

Among the works created in 1946 are three related figural works.
The painting herein, one from the esteemed Harry Burkhart
Collection, and another in a private collection.
The three works were likely produced in quick succession, one
after the other. They each have groups of solidly painted figures
that define the space and foreboding environments. The moody
works are punctuated with blocks of primary and secondary
colors—they are surely direct responses to the colorful visions and
trauma that Bess had discussed with his therapist.
In the untitled work herein, two figures have cornered a third—it
feels like an act of violence is about to occur. The reddish figure
appears defensive and raises his left arm to push away the two blue
beings closing in on him. Though flatly rendered the figures have a
keen sense of form and movement.
Though Bess would become widely known for his visionary works
and show at the Betty Parsons Gallery alongside Mark Rothko and
Jackson Pollock, it was through the figural works of 1946 that
allowed Bess to free himself and explore his symbolic work.
Forrest Bess was the subject of a retrospective at the Hammer
Museum in 2013/2014 and was featured in the 2012 Whitney
Biennial. His work is part of numerous museum and private
collections, including the Menil Collection, Houston, the Museum
of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Museum of Modern Art in New
York, and Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

“ONLY BY PAINTING THE
goddamned thing out have
all my symptoms of anxiety
disappeared.”
— Forrest Bess to Betty Parsons
Photo of Bess from,
"His Name Was Forrest
Bess" by Michael Ennis,
Texas Monthly, June 1982
Undated photo of Bess at his
house/studio in Chinquapin,
Texas.

Sun-face Bird House
Eastern Pennsylvania
Wood, tin, paint
Circa: 1930-1940
Size: 12" (diameter) x 5"
(deep)
Provenance: Aarne Anton,
Ricco / Maresca, Marvill
Collection
Literature: The Clarion,
Spring 1988, p.4

Ida Jones (1874-1959)
Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins
Oil on canvas board
Circa: 1945
Size: 17 1/4" (w) x 13 1/2" (h)
Ida Jones, the daughter of a former slave, had ten children and at the
age of seventy-two began painting. Self-taught, her work focuses on
local (Chester County, PA) landscapes, still-lifes and Biblical stories.
The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins is told in the Gospel of
Matthew 25:1-13, whereas the five virgins who are prepared for the
groom's arrival are rewarded, while the five who are not prepared are
disowned. The point being, be prepared (for Judgment Day)!
The Chester County Historical
Society held a retrospective exhibit
in 1995 and Jones was recently
included in “We Speak: Black
Artists in Philadelphia, 1920s-
1970s, ” 2015.
Literature: Starting Anew After
Seventy: The Story of Ida Ella
Jones, Primitive Artist, by Ida J.
Williams, 1980.
Photo of Jones in her studio, circa 1955.
To Everything a Season: The Art
and Life of Ida Jones, by Beverly
Sheppard and Roberta Townsend, 1995.

Dilmus Hall (1900-1987)
Figure Seated on a Bench
Wood, wood putty, metal, beads, paint
Circa: 1982-1983
Size: 13" (h) x 10" (w) x 5" (d)
Provenance: Roger Ricco, Marvill Collection
Pictured and discussed in American Primitive, p. 241, fig. 346.
As a child Hall would fashion small sculptures made from flour mixed
with tree sap. Discouraged by his father, he didn’t pursue art until later
in life.
After serving in WWI as a stretcher bearer, he returned to Georgia and
worked as a hotel bell captain, a sorority house busboy and then as a
fabricator of concrete blocks for a construction company. It was here
that Hall found himself again—
working with his hands.
He began making concrete sculpture
around his home. His sculpture
combined a mix of Christianity with
an African conjuring culture that
empowered objects with protective
powers. Later he would make little
tableau such as the example seen
herein that recall the modeling
technique he developed as a child.
Still image from the documentary, The
Mind's Eye, with Hall at his home, circa
1987.

Mirrored Mermaid
Wood, paint, caulk, mirror slivers
Circa: 1920-1930
Size: 40 1/2" (h) x 15" (w) x 8 1/2" (d)
A mysterious fish-tailed figure constructed of
plywood and inlaid with hundreds of mirror
slivers. The head is irregularly shaped, more fish
or alien than human. But, the body is slender and
anthropomorphic with broad shoulders and thin
arms. A wave at the base makes it look as if the
figure is emerging from the water.
Though its original purpose or creator has been
lost to time, it remains a compelling and
beautiful sculpture.

John Roeder (1877-1964)
The Traveling Observatory
Oil on canvas
Circa: 1950
Size: 14 5/8" (h) x 14 3/16" (w)
Born in Luxembourg, Roeder moved Richmond, CA in 1909 with
his wife and children. Roeder worked as a pipe fitter for many years
and then as a gardener for the local High School.
In his downtime, Roeder taught himself to paint and sculpt using
found materials and inexpensive paints.
The Traveling Observatory has all the elements of a complex
Roeder; fantasy, mystery, humor and great trees. A man stands
holding the reins of a horse-drawn
carriage that then becomes a
landscape of switchback trees and
fences upon which two men with
telescopes sit on a see-saw. At the
top of this landscape are snowy
white mountains with numerous
moons or planets in the distant sky.
Though the bulk of Roeder’s oeuvre
are paintings, he did some foundmaterial
sculpture and large-scale
concrete sculpture for his home en-
Photo of John Roeder by Imogen
Cunningham, 1961

vironment. The sculpture
herein, entitled “Hand, Tooth
& Foot” uses carved and found
elements. The hand reminds
me of an antique baseball
glove.
In 1961, The Richmond Art
Center held a large
retrospective of Roeder’s work,
where the photographer
Imogen Cunningham
photographed him among his
sculpture.
Photo of John Roeder by Imogen Cunningham, 1961
In 1962, the town of Richmond razed his home and gardens to
make way for a public building.
John Roeder (1877-1964)
Hand, Tooth & Foot
Wood
Circa: 1950
Size: 17" (h) x 12" (w) x 7" (d)
Exhibited: Richmond Art Center,
Richmond, CA, 1960 from the
collection of Vincent Porcaro.

Crockery Cacophony
Southeast Asia, Cambodia
Stoneware
Circa: 12-14th century
Size: 13" (h) x 16 1/2" (w)
Provenance: Doris Wiener Gallery, 1981.
An artful incidence of ancient Khmer vases, vessels and
celadon bowls haphazardly fused together. An
exhilarating work on the round—like a George Ohr /
Peter Voulkos mash-up!!

James W. Washington, Jr. (1909-2000)
Bird Family
Black granite, redwood burl
Dated: 1973
Size: 12 1/4" L x 8 1/8" D x 7 1/2" H
Exhibited at: Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, WA, "The Spirit in the
Stone: The Visionary Art of James W. Washington, Jr." March 10 -
April 16, 1989.
Bird Family is a large work of a mother bird protecting and feeding
three nestlings under her wing. The solid black granite
metaphorically reinforces the strength of the matriarch, while
Washington's sensitive carving conveys a certain intimacy and the
fragility of life.
James W. Washington, Jr. was an
African-American, self-taught
artist. Born in Gloster,
Mississippi, Washington settled
in Seattle as a government electricion.
Washington’s spirited,
but quiet carvings are seen as a
cross between two other direct
carvers; the African American
Folk Artist William Edmondson
(1874-1951) and American
sculptor John Flannagan (1895-
1942).
Photo of Washington in his studio. ©Jerry
Gay/Seattle Times.

Baby Counter-Weight
Iron, paint
Circa: 1900
Size: 12" (h) x 4 1/4" (w) x 2 3/4" (d)
Provenance: Kahn Collection, Peter Brams

Three Small Puppet Heads
England
Wood, paint, nails
Circa: 1920
Size: 2 3/4" (d) x 3 1/2" (h) each

George E. Ohr (1857-1918)
Biloxi, Mississippi
Stoneware
Circa: 1895
Size: 6" (l) x 4 1/2" (w) x 2 3/4" (h)
Provenance: Robert A. Ellison, Peter Brams
Literature: George Ohr, Art Potter: The Apostle of
Individuality, p.53, plate 41.
A great Ohr inkwell with a strange creature howling next
to a tree stump.
Undated photo of George Ohr in his studio.

George E. Morgan (1870-1969)
Moulton Mill
Oil on canvas board
Circa: 1963
Size: 20 (h)" x 16" (w)
Provenance: Anne K. Wardwell; Mr. & Mrs. Sumner and Helen
Johnston; Joe Wetherell; Raymond Saroff and Howard Rose; Peter
Brams
Exhibitions: The Playhouse, Boothbay, ME 1963; Farnsworth Art
Museum, Rockland, ME, July 16 - October 11, 1998; The Center for
Intuitive and Outsider Art, Chicago, IL, February 5 - April 10,1999
Literature: UNEXPECTED ELOQUENCE, The Edith Blum Art
Institute, Bard College, Annandale-on-
Hudson, 1990, by Howard Rose
“George E. Morgan; Self Taught Maine
Artist,” FOLK ART MAGAZINE,
Summer 1998, p. 30, Chippy Irvine.
One of Morgan’s larger works, this is an
imagined arial view above Moulton’s
Mill, which was originally built in 1790
as Adams Mill and located on Branch
Brook, which gets its water from Rock
Haven Lake, in Newfield, Maine
Photo of Morgan in front of a scale
model he built of the house he grew up
in.

James Castle (1899-1977)
Untitled
Boise, Idaho
Home Dairies Ice Cream card stock, pigment
Size: 2 3/8" (h) x 1 1/2" (w)
Provenance: J. Crist Gallery, Fleisher Ollman Gallery
Castle was born deaf and had limited schooling, but from a
young age he drew and made things with found materials—his
drawings are often on scrap paper and composed of soot and
spit.
In the 1950’s a nephew, who was in art school, showed one of
his instructors his uncle’s art and Castle was soon the subject of
one person and group shows throughout
the Pacific Northwest.
Castle’s work is part of numerous
museum collections and was the focus
of, “James Castle: A Retrospective” at
the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2008.
The 2013 Venice Biennale included
eleven works by Castle in the feature
exhibition The Encyclopedic Palace.
Castle working his soot and spit
drawings at his home in Garden
Valley, Idaho. Photo: Magnolia
Atlas.

Howard Rackliffe (American, 1917–1987)
Acadian Cliffs
Mixed media on board
Circa: 1968
Size: 21 1/2" (h) x 27 1/2" (w)
A self-taught painter from New Britain, CT, Rackliffe
primarily painted in the Acadia region of Maine.
Rackliffe’s work was recently the focus of a centennial
retrospective at the New Britain Museum of American
Art.
Rackliffe’s works are represented
in the collections of the Barnes
Foundation; New Britain Museum
of American Art; Portland
Museum of Art; and The
Farnsworth Museum.
Howard Rackliffe in an undated
photo.

Eugene Andolsek (1921–2008)
Untitled
ink on graph paper
Circa: 1980’s
Size: 13" (h) x 18" (w)
As a release from the dislike of his stenographer’s job,
Eugene Andolsek, began making obsessive, kaleidoscopic
drawings in the early 1950’s. Working at the kitchen table
with a few tools, skill and great patience, Andolsek
created a dizzying array of complex geometric patterns—
symmetrical and not.
After a drawing was finished he simply hid it away in a
trunk. It was not until a caretaker took sight of them and
brought them to the attention of the director of the Andy
Warhol Museum, that the works were brought to the
attention of a greater public.
Andolsek’s work was included in the “Obsessive
Drawing” exhibit at American Folk Art Museum in 2005.

Desire From The Planet Called Pleasure
Henry Ray Clark (1936 - 2006)
Colored ballpoint pens, manila envelope
Circa: 1997
Size: 20" (w) x 13 1/2" (h)
His street name was "The Magnificent Pretty Boy," because of his
good looks and intense blue eyes. Armed with a sixth grade
education, a life of drug dealing and hustling, Clark found himself
in and out of the Texas penitentiary system until an assault landed
him there on an extended stay.
Clark kept busy creating intricate, other-worldly drawings using
ballpoint pens and manila envelopes.
Clark’s work has been included in
several exhibits, including; Hirschl
& Adler, "Living Folk," 1990;
"Passionate Visions of the
American South," New Orleans
Museum of Art, 1993, and
"Spirited Journeys: Self-Taught
Texas Artists of the Twentieth
Century," 1997; and more recently
at the exhibition "Seeing Stars" at
the Menil Collection in Houston,
Texas in 2012.
Photo of Henry Ray Clark ©Jack Thompson

Large Folk Art Carved Woman in a Bikini
Maine
Wood
Circa: 1950-1960
Size: 19 3 /8" (h) x 7 3/4" (w) x 5 5/8" (d)

Frederick Hastings (1919-2013)
Seated Figure
Steel, air-dried clay, paint, cardboard, cotton
Circa: 1960-80
Size: 5" (h) x 4" (l) x 2" (w)
The work of Frederick Hastings was discovered a few years ago and
much of the details of his life and work remains a mystery.
What is known is that he lived outside of Philadelphia, was an architect
and may have had family money. It is also known that he was into
trains and built elaborate sets.
The figures are very well made, with steel armatures or skeletons and
then carefully modeled with some sort of air-dried clay or modeling
putty. Most have applied paper bikinis and several have wigs of cotton
or wool. Most of the figures come with hand-made boxes, custom fit to
accommodate the size and posture of each.
At first blush the figures appear hermaphroditic or trans-gendered,
however, none have a penis—just muscular bodies with breasts. And
though great effort is put into modeling and composing the figures,
there appears to be no attempt to idealize or beautify the faces—which
are often quite severe and grotesque.
During the same period in which Forrest Bess was exploring sexuality
through hermaphroditism, Hastings was engaged in exploring the
boundaries of masculinity and femininity.

Folk Art Leg Trays
France
Wood, papier-mâché, textile, gold leaf,
metal, paper, polychrome
Circa: 1920’s
Size: 24" (w) x 24" (h) each
Worn around the waist by topless
performers or waitresses at a burlesque show.

Large Coco de Mer
Circa: late 19thC
Size: 10" x 13"
First rate example with a nice “thigh gap.”

Female Nude on 60’s Basement Wood Paneling
Anonymous
Oil on vintage commercial wood paneling
Circa: 1970’s
Size: 16 1/2" (w) x16 1/4 (h)

Lady of The Town
Henry Speller (1903 - 1997)
Memphis, Tennessee
Crayon and pencil on paper
Circa: 1987
Size: 24" (w) x 18" (h)
Provenance: Marvill Collection
Speller was an artist and accomplished blues musician. His subjects
tended to be women of fantasy.
Born the son of African-
American sharecroppers in
the Mississippi Delta, he was
raised by his maternal
grandmother. Speller dropped
out of school at the age of
twelve.
Works by Speller are included
in many museums and private
collections including the High
Museum, Atlanta, and the
Smithsonian, Washington,
DC.
Photo of Henry Speller on his porch from the Souls
Grown Deep Foundation website.

Folk Art Erotic Cane
French
Circa: 1860-1880
Size: 35" (oah)
An unusually explicit example!!

Alice (1983)....In The Nude (1985)
Fernand Barbot (1930-2013)
Acrylic on artist board, paper
Dated: 1983/85
Size: 16" x 10" (sight)
Fernand Barbot was a French born, Brooklyn, NY painter who worked
in a primitive style.
These works laid in Barbot’s studio, unsatisfactorily finished for a
couple of years until he had the inspiration of cutting and pasting nude
women ripped from a gentlemen’s magazine to complete them.

3 Cows and 3 Sheep (1982)...and 1 Nude Woman (1985)
Fernand Barbot (1930-2013)
Acrylic on artist board
Dated: 1982/85
Size: 19" x 12 1/2" (sight)

Hippie Chick
Silver gelatin prints
Circa: 1968
Size: 8" (w) x 10" (h) each
Three unidentified photographs of a nude woman body-painted in the
Haight-Ashbury hippie style of the period. Wearing a big, black, beehive
wig, she sports a painted bikini, flowers and offers several 60’s era phrases
such as “sock it to me baby, “ “zap,” “zow,” and some sexual innuendos like,
“here cum de judge,” in the small of her back and “let’s bust out” above her
breasts.

S T E V E N S . P O W E R S
W O R K S O F
A R T
& a m e r i c a n a
109 3rd Place #2, Brooklyn, NY 11231 | 718.625.1715 or 917.518.0809
stevenspowers.com | member: ADA
< i n s i d e r / outsider/>
outsider art fair new york / jan. 18-21,2018