Purvis Young (1943-2010)

Purvis Young was an American artist from the Overtown neighborhood of Miami, Florida. Self-taught, Young's work was often a blend painting/drawing with collaged elements utilizing everyday discarded found objects.Inspired by documentaries, (art)books, American history and spiritual folklore his visual vocabulary was vast; wild horses, urban landscapes, (self) portraits, figures, holymen, angels, warriors, boats, sports, musicians, erotica, processions and incarceration to name but a few.

A.V. Smith (n.d.)

A. V. Smith was born in North Carolina where he lives and works. He began throwing pottery at the age of 15, working at Pinehurst Pottery in 1978 making dinnerware, lamp bases, candle sticks and other items. He ran Clenny Creek Pottery in partnership with potter Charles Lisk in Pinehurst and Southern Pines, North Carolina, until 1982 when Charles moved to Hickory.

Wilbur Rouson n.d

Wilbur Rouson was a Chicago policeman, a male model for life drawing classes at the Three Arts Club and an artist. We have a photo of a retirement letter from Mayor Richard M. Daley and photos of the artist modeling for art classes. These works were found at his home in historic Bronzeville.

Justin McCarthy (1891-1977)

Justin McCarthy grew up in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, son of a wealthy newspaper editor. He traveled to Europe with his family in 1907, where a visit to the Louvre inspired him to paint. His father died just a year later, however, and the family lost its money. McCarthy attended law school in Pennsylvania, but his failure to pass the bar exams led to a nervous breakdown, and he spent five years in a mental hospital. While he was recovering, his mother encouraged him to draw, and he created images of movie stars, comic strips, and sporting events. He spent the rest of his life living in the family mansion, growing and peddling vegetables and selling his paintings. After his mother died, the house fell into disrepair and McCarthy lived in just two rooms, filling the rest with stacks of unsold paintings.

Jerry Brown (1942-2016)

Jerry Brown was an American folk artist and traditional stoneware pottery maker who lived and worked in Hamilton, Alabama. He was a 1992 recipient of a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a 2003 recipient of the Alabama Folk Heritage Award. His numerous showings included the 1984 Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife with his uncle, potter Gerald Stewart.

Despite use of some modern equipment such as an electric kiln for firing some types of glazes and use of powered throwing wheels, he continued to use traditional methods such as digging his own clay, maintaining a mule to power his pug mill and firing most of his work in a brick kiln.

Other Brown family traditions include the use of a chicken feather to apply some of the glazing patterns, the use of broken pots for teeth in the face jugs, the practice of a two piece method for large vessels and the use of wheel and handshaping techniques for complex pieces instead of slip casting.

Michael Bayne (b.1959)

Born in 1959, Michel was raised in Tigerville, South Carolina. After high school, he worked for his family’s heating and air conditioning business for twenty five years before a work injury forced his early retirement. A class at the Greenville Museum of Art in 1977 prompted his

initial attraction to pottery. The studio pottery class was taught by Steve Ferrell, who later became an Edgefield master potter and historian. 

Michel quickly attained proficiency at making large vessels and simultaneously took Edgefield decorative techniques to a new level. Adding to traditional slip trailing technique, Michel also creates detailed scenes with underglaze. Motivated by his friendship with Columbia, SC potter Peter Lenzo, Michel began making more elaborate face jugs utilizing a special “inside out” technique. The sculptural features of these innovative creations are formed by pressing from inside of the piece, and no clay features are added. The characteristics of some of Michel’s face jugs are inspired by late nineteenth and early twentieth century work by London’s Martin Brothers.