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Simon Sparrow, Untitled, ca. 1968-1983, glitter, molded plastic, jewelry, shell, beads, and found objects on wood; artist-made painted wood frame, Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Margaret Z. Robson Collection, Gift of John E. and Douglas O. Robson, 2016.38.69
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Artwork Details
- Title
- Untitled
- Artist
- Date
- ca. 1968-1983
- Location
- Dimensions
- 33 × 35 in. (83.8 × 88.9 cm)
- Credit Line
- The Margaret Z. Robson Collection, Gift of John E. and Douglas O. Robson
- Mediums Description
- glitter, molded plastic, jewelry, shell, beads, and found objects on wood; artist-made painted wood frame
- Classifications
- Keywords
- Abstract
- Object Number
- 2016.38.69
Artwork Description
Simon Sparrow was born in West Africa to a Yoruban father and Native American mother, and raised in the Great Smoky Mountains, where his maternal grandfather lived among the Eastern Band of Cherokees. Sparrow felt a deep connection to the natural world and began a spiritual journey when he was just a boy. He preached the Pentecost and called himself a child of God, noting: “You is saved by God, by the Son, by the Holy Ghost. Not by no religion. Religion is man-made.” Sparrow’s shimmering works center on faces and creatures surrounded with geometric forms conveying, as he explained, the spiritual essences of the ancestors.
(We Are Made of Stories: Self-Taught Artists in the Robson Family Collection, 2022)
Exhibitions
July 1, 2022–March 26, 2023
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 Douglas O. Robson.