“Great and Mighty Things”: Outsider Art from the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection is a groundbreaking exhibition that will present drawings, paintings, sculptures, and other objects by 27 American artists who worked outside the boundaries of the mainstream modern and contemporary art world. Many of these artists were self-taught, causing them to be seen as outsiders from traditional art historical standards.
The exhibition spans the 1930s to 2010 and features iconic artists such as William Edmondson, Martín Ramírez, and Bill Traylor, alongside others who a general audience may not know taught themselves.
Ann Percy, the Museum’s Curator of Drawings, says, “This exhibition will demonstrate how works of art of enduring interest and quality can be created by people without formal training, who have limited or no connection to art dealers, critics, galleries, museums, and schools. In this exhibition, I believe that visitors will discover new and surprising aspects of the art of the 20th and 21st centuries in the United States.”
Visit Great and Mighty Things at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from March 3 to June 9, 2013.
First Photo:
“Schwaner Mtn Range. Borneo, Isl, Indonesia”. Joseph Yoakum, American, 1890-1972. Ballpoing pen ink, colored pencil, and pastel on paper, 12 x 17-1/2 inches (30.5 x 44.5 cm). Signed upper left: by Joseph Yoakum. Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection
Second Photo:
Jail Was Heat. Purvis Young, American, 1943-2010. Paint on weathered Masonite with nailed-on pieces of various types of weathered scrap wood, including yellow pine and plywood, 43 x 34 inches (109.2 x 86.4 cm). Signed upper right: Young. Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection
