Velox Ward

"Clean Up Time" East Texas Folk Art

Circa 1962

Johnny Banks (1912-1988) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 14 x 22 Frame Size: 21 x 29 Medium: mixed media Circa 1970s "The Safari Hunt for the Man Eating Tiger" Biography Johnny Banks (1912-1988) In my opinion one of the greatest Texas folk artists of all time. The following information was compiled and submitted by Stephanie Reeves: John Willard Banks, San Antonio, Texas, African American Folk Artist John Willard Banks, black self-taught artist, the son of Charlie and Cora Lee (McIntyre) Banks, was born on November 7, 1912, near Seguin, Texas. At the age of five his parents took him to San Antonio, where he attended Holy Redeemer School until the age of nine, when his parents were divorced and John returned to his grandparents' farm near Seguin. From childhood Banks's favorite pastime was drawing pictures on his Big Chief tablet. He later recalled, "As a kid I used to lie flat on my stomach, drawing and drawing. . . . My mother had to kick me off the floor to sweep." While helping out on his grandparents' farm, Banks completed the tenth grade before striking out on his own. His favorite activities during his youth were singing in a gospel quartet and playing baseball. In his adult years he worked in oilfields and cotton fields, drove a truck, and tended a San Antonio service station. During World War II he joined the army; he held the rank of sergeant and was stationed in the Philippines. After the war he returned to San Antonio, where he worked as a custodian at Kelly Air Force Base, at Fort Sam Houston, and at a local television station. Banks married Edna Mae Mitchell in 1928, and they had five children. The marriage ended in divorce around 1960. In 1963 he married Earlie Smith. His art career began in 1978 while he was recuperating from an illness for which he had been hospitalized. Banks's wife admired her husband's drawings and secretly took several of them to a San Antonio laundromat. There she hung the drawings on the wall, offering them for sale at the price of fourteen dollars. They were purchased and taken to a gallery for framing. Quite by chance, a San Antonio physician and collector of works of art by black artists...

Leon Collins (Born 1930) Galveston / Navasota Texas Artist Image Size: 11 x 28.5 Frame Size: 12 x 29.5 Medium: Oil on Board 2024 "Tarnado Coming" Leon Collins Birthdate Unknown Galve...

Joe Rader Roberts (1925 - 1982) Lockhart/Houston Artist Image Size: 20 x 16 Frame Size: 25 x 21 Medium: Oil Circa 1971 "Bakers Farm" Joe Rader Roberts (1925-1982) Born in Lockhart, ...

Leon Collins (Born 1930) Galveston / Navasota Texas Artist Image Size: 64 x 44 Frame Size: 70.25 x 50.25 Medium: Oil on Board "Wild Dream" Leon Collins Birthdate Unknown Galveston / ...

John Moulton (from Montana) had a cult following in his later years, his paintings were admired for their warmth, simplicity, and "down to earth" style; portraying rural settings and...

A charming and colorful oil on board painting by acclaimed Mexican American folk artist Martin Saldaña (1874–1965), titled “Farm and Figures.” This unique 20th-century outsider artwo...

Fabulous oil on canvas in the style of the famous William Aiken Walker. The details of this painting are amazing and is the same subject matter of most of Walker’s paintings. It is a...

Landscape Mississippi River. Saul Haymond, Sr. (1947- ) of Pickens, Mississippi is a self-taught painter who has been documenting life in the Africa...