Untitled

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
Copied Simon Sparrow, Untitled, ca. 1968-1983, glitter, molded plastic, jewelry, shell, beads, and found objects on wood; artist-made painted wood frame, 33 × 35 in. (83.8 × 88.9 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Margaret Z. Robson Collection, Gift of John E. and Douglas O. Robson, 2016.38.69

Artwork Details

Title
Untitled
Artist
Date
ca. 1968-1983
Location
Not on view
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
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/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

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