Artist

Simon Sparrow

born West Africa 1925-died Madison, WI 2000
Born
West Africa
Died
Madison, Wisconsin, United States
Active in
  • New York, New York, United States
  • Madison, Wisconsin, United States
Biography

Simon Sparrow was born in West Africa to a Cherokee mother and an African father. He moved to North Carolina when he was two years old and lived on an Indian reservation. Sparrow claims to have started preaching and painting at the age of seven, when God told him: "Open up your mouth, and I will speak for you." He ran away from home a few years later and went to Philadelphia, working in a restaurant and painting portraits in his free time. He joined the Army briefly, then moved to New York, where he worked a variety of odd jobs and painted religious subjects. In the early 1960s his apartment burned down and only one painting survived. Sparrow saw this as a message from God and decided never to paint a representational picture again. Instead, he created abstract images from glitter, beads, and found objects that show people's inner "spirits" ("Paul Schmeizer examines the mystery art and ministry of Simon Sparrow," Raw Vision, No. 34)

Exhibitions

Media - 2016.38.43R-V - SAAM-2016.38.43R-V_2 - 126225
We Are Made of Stories: Self-Taught Artists in the Robson Family Collection
July 1, 2022–March 26, 2023
Smithsonian American Art Museum
We Are Made of Stories: Self-Taught Artists in the Robson Family Collection traces the rise of self-taught artists in the twentieth century and examines how, despite wide-ranging societal, racial, and gender-based obstacles, their creativity and

Related Books

Cover for the catalogue "We Are Made of Stories: Self-Taught Artists in the Robson Family Collection"
We Are Made of Stories: Self-Taught Artists in the Robson Family Collection
We Are Made of Stories: Self-Taught Artists in the Robson Family Collection traces the rise of self-taught artists in the twentieth century and examines how, despite wide-ranging societal, racial, and gender-based obstacles, their creativity and bold self-definition became major forces in American art. The exhibition features recent gifts to the museum from two generations of collectors, Margaret Z. Robson and her son Douglas O. Robson, and will be on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum July 1, 2022 through March 26, 2023.