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USA
South
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Hazelhurst, MS
Mary T. (Tillman) Smith
1904-1995
Painting & sculpture environment(unconventional material), iconic human figures
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Information:
Mary Tillman Smith spent her entire life in Mississippi where she scratched out a living as a tenant farmer and domestic cook. She began to create in 1980 after her son had stacked some tin in her yard with which he intended to build a shed. Mary painted the tin with images of animals and created large human figures and hung them on her fence. After she finished the fence, she began to paint on boards and placed them throughout her yard. She created an environment of over one acre before she was finished. Today, there is virtually no evidence that the environment ever existed. Her work is usually single-color female portraits, depicted as haunting, stick-figure-like heads. She usually used no more than three colors, but more often than not the figures were of one color, usually black. Her tin work is highly prized and as the years pass even her work on plywood is becoming increasingly hard to find. She has been featured in several exhibitions and is considered to be one of the most important American Folk Artists of the 20th century.
The daughter of sharecroppers, Smith married first in 1922. In the 1930s, she married again, this time to John Smith. The couple then sharecropped near Martinsville, Mississippi. Her son, Sherdie Major, remembers that the Smith's were "run off in 1938 because she [Mary T. Smith] could do accounts and figured out that she was not fairly treated." In later years Smith did domestic work and gardened.
She began "making pictures" in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Often motivated by her religious faith and the desire to "pretty her yard," Smith transformed her approximately one acre home place into a fantastic art environment of painted tin, wood, and other found and recycled objects. She painted local figures on corrugated tin and mounted the portraits on her fence, her dog pen, or her son's garage.
By the early 1980's, she had transformed her yard into one of the most profound art environments in the South. As a contemporary of other great American Expressionist painters, she ranks as one of the most original. One of the hallmarks of her paintings are the prominently displayed captions or titles written in coded lettering and opaque anagrams which are integral elements of the overall design. She used only two to four different colors per painting. In 1985 she had a stroke which left her writing impaired. Still, her output was very prolific throughout the 1980's.
Her vegetable garden included scarecrows made of tin, bicycle parts, paint can lids, and painted faces. Once collectors and art dealers located her yard on Highway 51 on the south side of Hazelhurst, her yard changed from a powerful and energetic art environment to a sparsely decorated yard. Smith attempted to keep up with the demand by painting quickly and replacing the bought art, but the buyers were ultimately too numerous.
An honest, unassuming woman who made friends easily and who wore her humility as a badge, she frequently shared her wisdom with visitors. A visitor to Mary T. Smith's yard might have heard her personal motto which she had carefully inscribed above her dog pen: "One face is all right, two face won't do."
Considered one of "50 Classic Outsiders", Raw Vision Sourcebook, 2002"
Ole Miss
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Bibliography:
"Detour Art—Outsider, Folk Art, and Visionary Folk Art Environments Coast to Coast, Art and Photographs from the Collection of Kelly Ludwig" by Kelly Ludwig, Kansas City Star Books, 2007.
"Baking in the Sun, Visionary Images from the South" by Andy Nasisse and Maude Wahlman, University of Washington Press, exhibit catalog, 1987.
"Museum of American Folk Art Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century American Folk Art and Artists" by Chuck and Jan Rosenak, Abbeville Press, New York, 1990.
"20th Century American Folk, Self Taught, and Outsider Art" by Betty-Carol Sellen, Cynthia J. Johnson, Neal-Schuman Publishers, New York, 1993.
"Self-Made Worlds: Visionary Environments" by Roger Manley and Mark Sloan, Aperture, New York, 1997.
"Let it Shine: Self-Taught Art from the T. Marshall Hahn Collection" by Lynne E. Spriggs, Joanne Cubbs, Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, Susan Mitchell Crawley, Michael E. Shapiro and Peter Harholdt, organized by the High Museum of Art, 2001.
"Self Taught, Outsider, and Folk Art—A guide to American Artists, Locations and Resources" by Betty-Carol Sellen with Cynthia J. Johnson, McFarland & Company, 2000.
"Contemporary American Folk Art - A Collector's Guide" Chuck and Jan Rosenak, Abbeville Press, 1996.
"Souls Grown Deep: African American Vernacular Art of the South", Vol 2, Arnett, et al, 2001.
"Testimony: Vernacular Art of the African-American South: the Ronald and June Shelp Collection", Cronwill, Danto, Gaither, Gundaker and McWillie, 2001.
"Contemporary Folk Art: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum" by Tom Patterson, Watson-Guptill Publications/New York, 2001. |
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Credit: © Kelly Ludwig, Detour Art, all rights reserved. |
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Credit: |
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Credit: Kelly Ludwig |
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Credit: Kelly Ludwig |
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