Abraham Levin

The Jewish Family (untitled)

Paper measures 21 X 33 inches Born and raised in Mississippi, Alex O'Neal graduated from Rhode Island School of Design and School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In the Eighties, his formal education overlapped regular visits with Mississippi self-taught artists, including Mary T. Smith, Luster Willis, and Son Ford Thomas. He later immersed himself in art brut collections and European art brut in Switzerland, Germany, and France. His work is also inspired by African-American self-taught outsider art. O'Neal's drawings and paintings have been shown at The Drawing Center, New York; BRIC, Brooklyn; P.S.122, New York; Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY; Woodruff Arts Center, Atlanta; Tennessee Arts Commission, Nashville; Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS; Centre d’Art des Pénitents Noirs, Aubagne, France; Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans; Chicago Cultural Center; Ecomuseu, Valls d'Aneu, Spain; Amory Arts Center, West Palm Beach; Huntsville Museum of Art, AL; Rockefeller Art Center, SUNY Fredonia; ART LA; Field Projects, New York; LOG at Lump Gallery, Raleigh, NC; and Linda Warren Projects, Chicago. His work is in volumes 16, 38, and 104 of New American Paintings. His paintings and drawings idiosyncratically depict circumstances that associate Americans, i.e. dysfunction, nature worship, cults, homegrown terrorism, Hollywood, reverence for Native America. There is formal influence from stylization found in Romanesque fresco, early American portrait painting...

This is a signed portrait painting done in an outsider, folk art, expressionist style. it is signed in Hebrew, also marked with a Jewish star. this is from a collection of works by the same hand. they are all signed. Some have markings to the back of the paper. they have some age to them. They bear similarities to artists as dissimilar as Moshe Tamir, Mane Katz and an Israeli version of Purvis Young. In this piece the artist choice of colors is muted yet powerful. Israel has had a Vibrant Folk Art, Naive art scene for a long time now, artists like Yisrael Paldi, Nahum Guttman, Reuven Rubin and even Yefim...

This is a signed portrait painting done in an outsider, folk art, expressionist style. This one looks like a Chassidic Breslov Hasidic man. it is signed in Hebrew, also marked with a Jewish star. this is from a collection of works by the same hand. they are all signed. Some have markings to the back of the paper. they have some age to them. They bear similarities to artists as dissimilar as Moshe Tamir, Mane Katz and an Israeli version of Purvis Young. In this piece the artist choice of colors is muted yet powerful. Israel has had a Vibrant Folk Art, Naive art scene for a long time now, artists like Yisrael Paldi, Nahum Guttman, Reuven Rubin and even Yefim Ladyzhensky...

This is a signed portrait painting done in an outsider, folk art, expressionist style. it is signed in Hebrew, also marked with a Jewish star. this is from a collection of works by the same hand. they are all signed. Some have markings to the back of the paper. they have some age to them. They bear similarities to artists as dissimilar as Moshe Tamir, Mane Katz and an Israeli version of Purvis Young. In this piece the artist choice of colors is muted yet powerful. Israel has had a Vibrant Folk Art, Naive art scene for a long time now, artists like Yisrael Paldi, Nahum Guttman, Reuven Rubin and even Yefim Ladyzhensky had naive periods. The most well know of the strict naive artists are Shalom of Safed, Irene Awret, Gabriel Cohen, Natan Heber, Michael Falk and Kopel Gurwin. Naïve art is any form of visual art that is created by a person who lacks the formal education and training that a professional artist undergoes (in anatomy, art history, technique, perspective, ways of seeing). Unlike folk art, naïve art does not necessarily evince a distinct cultural context or tradition. Naïve art is recognized, and often imitated, for its childlike simplicity and frankness. Paintings of this kind typically have a flat rendering style with a rudimentary expression of perspective. One particularly influential painter of "naïve art" was Henri Rousseau (1844–1910), a French Post-Impressionist who was discovered by Pablo Picasso. Naïve art is often seen as outsider art that is by someone without formal (or little) training or degree. While this was true before the twentieth century, there are now academies for naïve art. Naïve art is now a fully recognized art genre, represented in art galleries worldwide. Museums devoted to naïve art now exist in Kecskemét, Hungary; Riga, Latvia; Jaen, Spain; Rio de Janeiro, Brasil; Vicq France and Paris. "Primitive art" is another term often applied to art by those without formal training, but is historically more often applied to work from certain cultures that have been judged socially or technologically "primitive" by Western academia, such as Native American, sub saharan African or Pacific Island art (see Tribal art). This is distinguished from the self-conscious, "primitive" inspired movement primitivism. Another term related to (but not completely synonymous with) naïve art is folk art. There also exist the terms "naïvism" and "primitivism" which are usually applied to professional painters working in the style of naïve art (like Paul Gauguin, Mikhail Larionov, Paul Klee). At all events, naive art can be regarded as having occupied an "official" position in the annals of twentieth-century art since - at the very latest - the publication of the Der Blaue Reiter, an almanac in 1912. Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc, who brought out the almanac, presented 6 reproductions of paintings by le Douanier' Rousseau (Henri Rousseau), comparing them with other pictorial examples. However, most experts agree that the year that naive art was "discovered" was 1885, when the painter Paul Signac became aware of the talents of Henri Rousseau and set about organizing exhibitions of his work in a number of prestigious galleries. The Earth Group (Grupa Zemlja) were Croatian artists, architects and intellectuals active in Zagreb from 1929 to 1935. The group included the painters Krsto Hegedušić, Edo Kovačević, Omer Mujadžić, Kamilo Ružička, Ivan Tabaković, and Oton Postružnik, the sculptors Antun Augustinčić, Frano Kršinić, and the architect Drago Ibler. Art brut, primitive art, primitive, art naïf, naïve art. Outsider art. A term applied to Yugoslav (Croatian) naive painters working in or around the village of Hlebine, near the Hungarian border, from about 1930. Some of the best known naive artists are Dragan Gaži, Ivan Generalić, Josip Generalić, Krsto Hegedušić, Mijo Kovačić, Ivan Lacković-Croata, Franjo Mraz, Ivan Večenaj and Mirko Virius. Camille Bombois (1883–1970) Ferdinand Cheval, known as 'le facteur Cheval' (1836–1924) Henry Darger (1892–1973) L. S. Lowry (1887–1976) Grandma Moses, Anna Mary Robertson (1860–1961) Nikifor (1895–1968) Poland, Horace Pippin (1888–1946) Jon Serl (1894-1993) United States Alfred Wallis (1855–1942) Scottie Wilson (1890–1972) Gesner Abelard (b. 1922) Jan Balet (1913–2009) Michel Delacroix (b. 1933) France Howard Finster (1916–2001) Ivan Rabuzin (1921–2008) Spontaneous Art Museum in Brussels Art en Marge Museum in Brussels MADmusée in Liege International Museum of Naive Art of Brazil in Cosme Velho, Rio de Janeiro Gallery Jacques Ardies in São Paulo Musée international d'art naïf de Magog in Magog Croatian Museum of Naïve Art in Zagreb Gallery of Croatian Naïve Art...