While the first use of the term "outsider" can't be specifically attributed to any one person, during the 1970s, interest in works of art by untrained artists began to grow. Collectors of this work started to call the artists "outsiders" because they were outside the mainstream of the American Art Community. 

Since then, Outsider Art has become a very important genre in American Art. Outsider Artists have gained much deserved recognition over the last three decades. Outsider Art is also known as Self-Taught Art, Art Brut  and Visionary Art. The artists themselves are not trained in traditional art forms, which leaves them free to express themselves in the manner in which they choose.

These are self-taught artists from around the Southeastern United States. All of these Visionary Artists have at least this in common, they express themselves freely and are not limited by tradition. Their work is at once inspiring and visually exciting. In these artists one can truly see the limitlessness of human expression. 

We have put a little information about a few of the artists as well as photos further down the page. Take a little time to see the beauty of their work by clicking on the links in the left margin or by clicking on any of the pictures or links  below.  

Outsider Artist Mose Tolliver  was a painter. He painted mostly with latex house paint on plywood that his family cut for him. He sometimes used masonite, but mostly stuck with plywood. This prominent folk artist also painted instruments like guitars and banjos and was known to even paint pianos ! From time to time he also painted chairs, watering cans and other objects. Mose is known as the Patriarch of American Folk Art and is cited as an influence by many other Outsider Artists. Mose is featured in many publications on Self-Taught artists including "Mose T's Slapout Family Album ", "Light of the Spirit, Portraits of Southern Outsider Artists",  and "Pictured in my Mind, Contemporary American Self-Taught Art" all of which are offered on our Book Page

Mose (or possibly Moses) Tolliver, one of the most highly respected of American self taught artists, was born on the Rittenour Farm in the Pike Road community of Montgomery County, Alabama. Born into a sharecropping family, he was the youngest of Ike and Laney Tolliver's eight sons and four daughters. He attended nearby Mount Olive School through the third grade, much preferring outdoor activities to classroom work. After working for a tenant farmer, he moved to nearby Montgomery in the 1930s and began caring for people's yards and working a variety of other jobs, including painting, plumbing, and carpentry. Eventually, he was employed at the McClendon Furniture Company.

In the 1940s, Tolliver married Willie Mae Thomas, with whom he had eleven children—seven sons and four daughters. In the late 1960s, an accident at work changed his life. A  crate of marble fell from a forklift, crushing his left ankle and damaging leg tendons and muscles. Since then he has been unable to work and has had to use crutches to walk. During a period of depression, he was encouraged to take up painting by one of his former employers, Raymond McClendon, who was an amateur painter himself. Experimenting and without taking lessons, Tolliver began to paint vigorously, often staying up all night creating pictures of birds, flowers, people, and animals, both realistic and fanciful. Painting was been and continued to be Tolliver's most potent strategy for healing for the remainder of his life.. Learn more about Mose Tolliver Here. 

Bernice Sims (b 1926)

Bernice Sims is also a painter. Bernice uses more traditional materials. Acrylic on canvas is her medium of choice. Her early work was oil on canvas, but she switched to acrylics because she said the oil paints made her ill. Ms Sims has been an active civil rights advocate all of her life. She recalls being chased away from the polls by the Klu Klux Klan. Some of her paintings depict the struggle for civil rights in the old south. She paints mostly from memory.  A self-taught artist in the truest sense, she began painting after a visit to Mose Tolliver's house in the mid eighties.  Bernice is featured in many publications on Self-Taught artists including "Revelations: Alabama's Visionary Folk Artists" which is offered on our Book Page. Learn more about Bernice Sims here.  

Jimmie Lee Sudduth (1910 - 2007)

Outsider Artist Jimmie Lee Sudduth was a painter as well. Jimmie was born on March 10, 1910, and painted all of his life. He used a mixture of mud, sugar, paint and natural pigments, usually on plywood or paneling. The works he created are both unusual and beautiful, and are much sought after by outsider art enthusiasts.   Jimmie first outlined his work in pencil, or charcoal, and sometimes even a piece of gravel. He then rubbed his paint and mud mixture onto the plywood with his finger. He developed this technique as a young boy. Jimmie's art hangs in museums all over the U.S., he is a prominent folk artist as well as a national treasure. Jimmie Lee is featured in many publications on Self-Taught artists including "Revelations: Alabama's Visionary Folk Artists", "Light of the Spirit, Portraits of Southern Outsider Artists",  and "Pictured in my Mind, Contemporary American Self-Taught Art" all of which are offered on our Book Page

Jimmie Lee was one of the artists included in the 1976 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Only two folk artists from each of the fifty states were invited, and he was one of the two chosen to represent Alabama. He returned full of new ideas for subjects and with a cache of stories about this special event in his life. Several paintings since that trip show the Washington Monument, the Capitol, and individuals at the festival, especially the African and Brazilian dance groups. Recollections about officials he saw and met vary with each telling. He has several times recounted one story about President Gerald Ford, whom he says did not come out to see him "Afraid he'd get some of Mr Wallace's dirt on him! The story was always followed with a hearty chuckle.

Natural materials were important to Jimmie. He grew up on a farm, as a young man worked as a farmhand, and was never without a garden to tend. In conversation he proudly emphasized that paint is not essential to his art.

In spite of the availability of these conventional artist's supplies, Sudduth preferred to rely on his own resourcefulness with natural materials. He claimed to have found thirty-six shades of mud, and also used leaves, pine needles, and other foliage to get a wider range of colors. He said, "I can scrub leaves on wet paper to get green. [He also rubs leaves and grass directly on plywood] Sometimes I hammer green tree buds when they first come out in the spring to get green color, and sometimes I hammer green pine needles on wet paper." He often uses the husks of walnut shells to obtain a dark stain and gathered poke-berries and elderberries for red-purple colors. Learn more about Jimmie Lee Here. 

Chris Clark (b 1958)

Chris Clark is a painter, quilter and sculptor. Chris is featured in many books on on Self-Taught artists including "Revelations: Alabama's Visionary Folk Artists" and "Spirits of the Cloth" which are offered on our Book Page. Chris creates quilts, painted chairs and "Spirit Sticks". Click on Chris' picture or one other hyperlinks in this paragraph to go to his page and learn more about this amazing artist.

When Chris Clark's grandmother first saw one of his painted quilts, she told him, "Now what do you want to go and do  that for? That paints just gonna come right off when you put it in the washer." Clark explained that he intended the quilt be used as a wall hanging, not to add warmth and comfort to somebody's bed. But his grandmother just couldn't go along with it.

"And it was really discouraging. People thought I was kind of crazy for doing it. But I kept making them. I just stopped showing them to anybody."

A large man with a soft-spoken, sweet demeanor, Clark has covered the walls of his small rented art studio in Birmingham, Alabama, with a dozen of his hand-painted quilts. They are among the 100 or so he's made since he showed his disapproving grandmother that first painted quilt in 1991.

One quilt on display in his studio is filled with panels depicting the stories of Noah and the Ark, the Sermon on the Mount, and other scenes from the Bible. Clark's favorite quilt, called "The Church," takes up nearly an entire wall and features a colorfully robed gospel choir serenading a swaying congregation. Click Here to learn more about Chris Clark 

Annie Tolliver (b 1950)

Annie Tolliver is the daughter of Mose Tolliver. Taking up painting at her Father's knee, she has become a prominent Outsider Artist in her own right. Her images are similar to her father's in style, but her subject matter is quite different and her style is uniquely her own. African children like the ones pictured here are a frequent subject of Annie's. She also paints whimsical animals such as Turtles, Dogs, Fish, and of course her well-known Cats. Often included as part of her work are members of her own family such as her many sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews. Scenes of her sisters shopping and her nieces and nephews skating, swimming and jumping rope are a recurring theme with Annie.  

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