For the Outsider Art Fair of 2022, Hirschl & Adler Modern is pleased to present a curated selection of top examples by artists in the gallery’s self-taught program. The feature wall will present multiple, fresh-to-market, works by Bill Traylor flanked by two important figure constructions by James Castle presented in the round. Castle and Traylor are among the most celebrated self-taught artists in the world today. Each invented novel approaches to rendering human figures and animals using abstract principles and an animated sense of dynamism.
We also expect to feature the enigmatic Missouri artist Edward Deeds, a longtime patient at State Hospital No. 3 in the small town of Nevada, Missouri, whose work is represented exclusively by the gallery. Mostly escapist fare, these carefully drawn, beguiling, renderings of people and places are fantastical, at times surreal, but also infused by the artist’s own experiences. The unlikely discovery of Deeds’ work in 2006 is considered one of the greatest additions to the field in a generation. His work is prominently featured in the exhibition, Multitudes, currently on view at the American Folk-Art Museum, New York.
Finally, we will present new work by Jeanne Brousseau (b. 1952), a living self-taught artist based in Maine. She and her work came to light in just the past few years. Making drawings is a deeply private endeavor for the artist who took decades to finally share them with friends and eventually the public. They are vivid, strikingly imaginative drawings of shape-shifting humans and elaborate beasts both adorable and menacing. Through these strange but undeniably beautiful forms, Brousseau tells the story of abuse she suffered as a child that she repressed until middle age. With a deft hand she channels her inner child-like innocence, marshals color and beauty to work through her deep trauma all to heal and ultimately overcome it.


Hirschl & Adler Modern - B8

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