Artist

Jimmy Lee Sudduth

born Caines Ridge, AL 1910-died Fayette, AL 2007

Media - sudduth_jimmy_lee.jpg - 90549 — Originally photographed by Chuck Rosenak. Image is courtesy of the Chuck and Jan Rosenak research material, 1990-1999, in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Also known as: Jimmy Lee Suddouth
Jim L. Suddth
Jimmy Lee Suddth
Jimmie Lee Sudduth
Born: Caines Ridge, Alabama, United States
Died: Fayette, Alabama, United States

Biography: Jimmy Lee Sudduth's fertile imagination has led him to paint self-portraits, dogs, television personalities, and the architecture and landscape near his home in Fayette, Alabama, as well as views of New York and other cities. In Big City Skyline, rows of people filing across a bridge toward a crowded mass of towering skyscrapers emphasize the anonymity of life in America's large cities. Sudduth's materials—mud mixed with sugar water and color extracted from weeds and vegetables—are no less inventive than his themes. He rarely uses canvases or brushes, preferring to use his fingers to paint with clay, mud, sand, and soot on plywood.
Lynda Hartigan Contemporary Folk Art: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (exhibition text, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1999)
: Luce Artist Biography
Jimmy Lee Sudduth remembered drawing shapes in the dirt as a child. He also made his own charcoal from wood coals and used it to draw all over the inside walls of his house ("Jimmy Lee Sudduth Paintings To Be Exhibited At Museum," September 1971, Chuck and Jan Rosenak research material, 1990-1999, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution). Sudduth created mud paintings by applying a mixture of earth and sugar to pieces of plywood with his fingers. He rubbed weeds, berries, and soot over the mud to get different colors, and claimed that "You can paint a thousand dollars worth of pictures with just a cupful of sugar." (Nancy Callahan, "Plywood for his canvas, turnip greens for paint, old houses as subject," The Christian Science Monitor, July 23, 1980)

Works by this artist (7 items)

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Jimmy Lee Sudduth, Untitled (Chicken), ca. 1995, clay and syrup on plywood, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Orren and Marilyn Bradley and Kohler Foundation, Inc., 2015.58.20

Untitled (Chicken)

Artist

Jimmy Lee Sudduth

Dateca. 1995

clay and syrup on plywood

Jimmy Lee Sudduth, Untitled (Statue of Liberty), ca. 1989, sand, mud, and paint on board, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Orren and Marilyn Bradley and Kohler Foundation, Inc., 2015.58.21

Untitled (Statue of Liberty)

Artist

Jimmy Lee Sudduth

Dateca. 1989

sand, mud, and paint on board

Jimmy Lee Sudduth, Self-Portrait with Banjo, 1986, mixed media: mud, paint, and vegetable matter on board, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chuck and Jan Rosenak and museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 1997.124.40

Self-Portrait with Banjo

Artist

Jimmy Lee Sudduth

Date1986

mixed media: mud, paint, and vegetable matter on board

Jimmy Lee Sudduth, Big City Skyline, ca. 1988, paint, mud, and sand on plywood, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chuck and Jan Rosenak and museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 1997.124.39

Big City Skyline

Artist

Jimmy Lee Sudduth

Dateca. 1988

paint, mud, and sand on plywood