Highlights from New York’s Outsider Art Fair, the Most Refreshing Show in Town Inline
Photo: Courtesy of Galerie St. Etienne1/8Morris Hirshfield was a Polish-born textile and shoe manufacturer whose 1943 MoMA retrospective cost founding director Alfred H. Barr his job. Hirshfield’s Opera Girl, from 1941, is particularly brilliant.
Pictured: Morris Hirschfield, Opera Girl, 1941
Photo: Courtesy of Kent Fine Art2/8Paul Laffoley was on hand in the booth of Kent Fine Art yesterday to explain his map-like mixed media works with perfect claritys. They might otherwise require a cryptographer to decode.
Pictured: Paul Laffoley, The Five Principles of Geezer Art, 2003
Photo: Courtesy of Andrew Edlin Gallery3/8Both the Andrew Edlin Gallery and Carl Hammer Gallery brought works by preeminent outsider artist Henry Darger, whose pictures of doll-like girls collaged from midcentury advertisements were only discovered after his death in 1973.
Pictured: Henry Darger, Flanengoe Girlscouts Thirty Third Degree Rangers, 1892-1973
Photo: Courtesy of Jackie Klempay4/8Jerry Torre, better known as Jerry the Marble Faun (and best known as the handyman and third resident of Grey Gardens), was treated like a celebrity at the fair, where gallerist Jackie Klempay is displaying his stone sculptures.
Pictured: Jerry the Marble Faun, Toungue-tied, 2007-09
Photo: Courtesy of Rebecca Hossack and the Artist5/827-year-old New Zealander Rob Tucker uses whatever materials he can find—oil paint, red wine, glitter, who knows what else—before coating them in the same glossy resin used to make surfboards. On view at the booth of the Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, the results, intentional or not, are still-life paintings that resemble large-scale Matisse cutouts.
Pictured: Rob Tucker, Pepperoni and pineapple and sandwiches are delightful most days, 2014
Photo: Courtesy of Creative Growth Art Center, Oakland, California6/8Before her death in 2005, Judith Scott regularly visited the studio-gallery-therapy center known as Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, California. There, she wound everyday objects in yards of wires, yarn, and other fibrous materials to create sculptures that resemble synthetic bird nests and Surrealist cocoons. For the fair, Creative Growth brought one of their few works not currently on view at the Brooklyn Museum’s current Scott retrospective.
Pictured: Judith Scott, Untitled, 2003
Photo: Courtesy of Calvin Morris Gallery7/8Vivian Maier has received a lot of attention this year. After an Oscar-nominated documentary, a warmly received survey at Howard Greenberg, and a lawsuit over the rights to her work, it’s wonderful to simply come across some Maier street pictures at the booth of Cavin-Morris Gallery, experience some fleeting moments through her eyes, and then stroll along to the next booth.
Pictured: Vivian Maier, Untitled, 1950-1965
Photo: Courtesy of Winter Works on Paper8/8The Winter Works On Paper booth is exhibiting dozens of early documentary photographs that range from the curiously bizarre (disfigured circus performers) to the outright shocking (a jumper about to hit the ground), all of which are worth a look.
Pictured: Chicago Police Department, Ellen Murphy, Abortionist, 1945
