Simon Sparrow
I am Man I am Not a Animal, ca. 1970
Watercolor crayon on paper
25 x 19 in
SKU: 14166c
$3,645
This original pastel by Simon Sparrow is a beautiful example of his earlier work, created circa 1970 when he first moved to Madison, Wisconsin. It is in good restored condition. Additional condition images available upon request.
Sparrow was an outsider artist best known for his assemblages created with found objects, which he began creating in the 1980s. His work can be found in the collections of many prominent institutions, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Minnesota Museum of American Art. The Smithsonian writes the following of Sparrow and his work:
"Simon Sparrow was born in West Africa to a Yoruban father and Native American mother, and raised in the Great Smoky Mountains, where his maternal grandfather lived among the Eastern Band of Cherokees. Sparrow felt a deep connection to the natural world and began a spiritual journey when he was just a boy. He preached the Pentecost and called himself a child of God, noting: 'You is saved by God, by the Son, by the Holy Ghost. Not by no religion. Religion is man-made.' Sparrow’s shimmering works center on faces and creatures surrounded with geometric forms conveying, as he explained, the spiritual essences of the ancestors."
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