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Athens, GA Devil's Drinking Party Yard Show - Dilmus Hall 1900-1987 Environment

Information: In 1900, Dilmus Hall was born in Oconee Country Georgia, into a tenant farming family. At age thirteen he moved to Athens, Georgia, and he developed an interest in art, despite his family's objection to this impractical profession. He served in the army in Belgium during World War II and was influenced by the art he saw in Europe. He returned to Athens and held a variety of jobs including hotel work, work for the highway department, as a waiter and a sorority house busboy on the University of Georgia campus, and as a fabricator of concrete blocks. Before being stopped by arthritis, Hall created concrete, metal and wood sculptures, some of the devil in various activities, and some of fanciful human and animal figures. After his arthritis became too painful for him to continue making sculptures, he began to make drawings. Dilmus passed away in 1987, and many of his pieces are in museum collections. According to Maude Southwell Wahlman in Souls Grown Deep, "African American Yard arts can be proclamations of individual public identity, tools for remembering aspects of African American conjuring culture, storytelling devices, memorials to artists or others, signs to community members and conscious protective systems for controlling or keeping away dangerous forces." Blue Hands refers to an African American charm called a "mojo," or "hand." Several concrete works of Halls are on permanent display at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia. Orange Hill Gallery

	Reference / Links:
	Barbara Archer Gallery: "Dilmus Hall" Romano Art: "Dilmus Hall" Slotin Folk Art Orange Hill Gallery Stephen Romano
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Bibliography: "Light of the Spirit : Portraits of Southern Outsider Artists" by Karekin Goekjian and Robert Peacock , 1998. "O Appalachia: Artists of the Southern Mountain" by Ramona Lampell and Millard Lampell with David Larkin, Tabori & Chang, publisher, New York, 1989. "20th Century American Folk, Self Taught, and Outsider Art" by Betty-Carol Sellen, Cynthia J. Johnson, Neal-Schuman Publishers, New York, 1993. "Souls Grown Deep: African American vernacular Art of the South", Vol 1, Arnett, et al, 1995. "Self-Made Worlds: Visionary Environments" by Roger Manley and Mark Sloan, Aperture, New York, 1997. "Self Taught, Outsider, and Folk Art—A guide to American Artists, Locations and Resources" by Betty-Carol Sellen with Cynthia J. Johnson, 2000. "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. "American Self-Taught Art: An Illustrated Analysis of 20th Century Artists and Trends with 1,319 Capsule Biographies" by Florence Laffal and Julius Laffal, 2003. Slotin Folk Art Auction Catalog, Masterpiece Sale, November 4, 2006

Credit: Slotin Folk Art

	Blue Handsc. 1962 This is one of Hall's most important and recognizable works. It is illustrated on page 221 in Souls Grown Deep in a 1986 photo taken by Roger Manley in Hall's garden. The significance of the piece is emphasized by the chapter title, "Blue Hands." Cast and painted concrete with some original blue paint. Comes with metal pedestal. Early environmental piece with hands in relief and date cut into cement. 14 x 14 x 14 Est. $3,000 - $5,000 Ship: $300 (includes crate for shipping). A Slotin ÒmojoÓ auction favorite! Credit: Slotin Folk Art
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