Milo Quam Art

Wonderfully provocative sketch drawing of a gathering of men and women in pencil by outsider artist Mylo Quam (American, 1941-1996). Signed lower right. Presented in giltwood frame with black mat under glass. Image size: 8.25"H x 10.50"W. A long-time Woodstock area resident, Mylo Quam was a self-taught painter and draughtsman whose provocative figural work has been compared to Renaissance painters Sandro Botticelli and Hieronymous Bosch, as well as to twentieth-century artists Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. Quam was an avid reader who derived inspiration from such varied arenas as Shakespeare, the occult, the Bible, Eastern and Western mythology, politics, and popular culture. "I look at everything," the artist was quoted as saying in 1990. "I read the comic pages. Anything visual. There's very little I don't think is a subject for art." Born in North Dakota, Quam studied Greek language and other classical subjects at Brandeis, Boston, and New York Universities, and worked as a translator of Greek plays while just 17 years old. After a successful career as an actor that included numerous Off-Broadway performances and a leading role in the 1968 Broadway production of Royal Hunt of the Sun, Quam turned his focus to painting. His first one-man exhibition was at the Boatman Gallery, NYC in 1969 and was followed by twenty solo shows over the course of his career at venues including Gallery A, Flynn Gallery, CFM Gallery, Brewster Gallery, Imperial Gallery, Runyon Winchell Gallery and the Gallery of Erotic Art, all in New York City. Quam's work was also exhibited at the John Pense Gallery in San Francisco, the Clark-Whitney Gallery in Massachusetts, the Barrett House and Desmond Weiss Galleries in Poughkeepsie, and for many years at the Ann Leonard Gallery in Woodstock. Quam's paintings were exhibited internationally, as well, notably in a solo exhibition in Haiti-- the first by an American artist in that country. In addition, he was one of four artists to represent the United States in La Bienalle di Venezia, Italia of 1986. As a young man, Quam designed sets and/or costumes for the Actor's Playhouse in New York City, the Lucas Hovig Ballet Company, and the Opera Municipal de Marseilles, France. He also created illustrations for The Story of O...