AN UPSTATE NEW YORK GALLERY WILL HIGHLIGHT A CACHE OF RARE, EARLY WORKS BY THE CANONICAL AMERICAN SELF-TAUGHT PAINTER

by Edward M. Gómez

NEW YORK, February 20, 2025 — The grand opening of the 33rd annual Outsider Art Fair will take place in New York next Thursday, February 27. The big event, featuring 66 exhibitors from nine countries, will continue through Sunday, March 2.

Among the galleries, private dealers, institutions, and other participants taking part in this year’s fair, so-called legacy galleries or dealers — those that have been around for decades and, in most cases, have played important roles starting many years ago in establishing and developing an international market for the related genres of art brut and outsider art — have become fewer than ever. That’s because, in recent years, the founders and longtime operators of several such well-known galleries have died or closed their businesses.

The New York galleries Cavin-Morris and Ricco/Maresca, and the New York-based private dealer Marion Harris are notable legacy experts in the outsider field who have taken part in the Outsider Art Fair for decades, as is Philadelphia’s Fleisher/Ollman Gallery. From Chicago, Carl Hammer Gallery, another legacy outpost in the outsider field, will be participating in the OAF for the last time this year; on April 1, it will close its doors following a long, influential run that has lasted 45 years.

Meanwhile, in recent years, the presence at the fair of numerous galleries that have become known for showing both certain forms of contemporary art made by schooled, “professional” artists as well as works produced by self-taught art-makers has become more visible.

Among newcomer exhibitors, this year, Ruffed Grouse Gallery, which is located in the riverside town of Narrowsburg, New York, northwest of New York City, will take part in the OAF for the second time. Founded and operated by the artist Ryan Ward, a painter, Ruffed Grouse will be featuring works by various artists, including, notably, paintings made by Mose Tolliver.

Tolliver (1919-2006) long ago earned a place in the canon of definitive American outsider artists and, specifically, in that of important, Black self-taught artists from the American South. In this group, his peers include such innovative self-taught artists as Thornton Dial, Sr., Lonnie Holley, Sam Doyle, Mary T. Smith and many others.

These artists and others were the subjects of the research and the focus of the collecting activity of the late William (“Bill”) S. Arnett, the founder of the Atlanta-based Souls Grown Deep Foundation. Starting in 2016, with the foundation’s donation of some 60 works of different kinds made by the above-cited artists to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and then to other major museums around the U.S., Arnett saw his dream come true: recognition by the keepers of mainstream art history’s narrative of the significant contributions of such artists to the history of 20th-century art.

In recent years, appreciation has increased for Tolliver’s works and artistic achievements, not only because he may be seen as a member of the above-cited historical group of artists but also because, compared to the rest of them, the art he created was unique.

Tolliver was primarily a painter. His subjects were close to and taken from nature and familiar human relations. In Tolliver’s art, there is less consideration of big, historical themes of the kind one finds in, say, the work of Thornton Dial, Sr. Instead, like that of Bill Traylor (circa 1853-1949), Tolliver’s work was grounded in everyday life and observations of his immediate surroundings. The artist tended to use humble materials — often ordinary house paint on found scraps of plywood or wooden boards.

At this year’s OAF, Ruffed Grouse will feature a group of the Tolliver paintings informed collectors covet the most: pictures of animals and human figures the artist produced during the early phase of his career in the 1970s, when he was imaginatively exploring the expressive power of his materials; interpreting his subjects in novel, clever ways; and in an instinctive manner, developing what would soon become a distinctive, recognizable personal style.

The works Ruffed Grouse will feature in its booth were acquired over several years, directly from Tolliver, by an Arkansas-based couple that made regular road trips during the 1970s and 1980s through the Deep South, stopping in small towns to meet self-taught artists, speak with them about their bold, unusual creations, and purchase works from their home studios.

Today, avid admirers of outsider art tend to value Tolliver’s paintings less as novelties than they do for their deep sense of humanism and even for the sassy, charming visual poetry they express.

[Scroll down to see more Mose Tolliver paintings that will be on display in the Ruffed Grouse Gallery booth at the 2025 Outsider Art Fair.]