Rev. Maceptaw Bogun

Reverend Maceptaw Bogun worked as a tape librarian for the New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority and also served as a minister in two of the city's Spiritualist churches. He began painting at the age of fifty after seeing an exhibit sponsored by the NYC Transit Authority Art Association, a group founded in 1958 that afforded transit employees an opportunity to display their artwork on subway platforms. Bogun had debated with himself for weeks after the show about whether or not he should try painting, but finally started after he received "the 'go' signal from the Creator or one of his able Spirits." Bogun created one painting each year, only stopping in 1986 when he had filled his walls with his "spiritual art." (Hemphill, Twentieth-Century American Folk Art and Artists, 1974; Wertkin, Encyclopedia of American Folk Art, 2004)