112 year old artist makes it big

 

Many crazed brilliant artists die penniless, receiving their deserved recognition long after their studio is dark.  Frank Calloway is getting his glory while he still can, at 112 years old.  Calloway was born in 1896 (pause to roll off all the things that didn’t exist then: cars, grandma, the first world war) and he has been institutionalized since 1952 for schizophrenia. 

 Using a crayon, marker, or a ball point pen Calloway transforms large stretches of butcher paper into murals of things ancient and forgotten.  Wooden paddle boats and horses laboring under the Alabama sun are part of the reason his art is suddenly a success, he draws the idyllic simple life.

 “I couldn’t get time to go to school much, stopped in the third grade reader, that’s all I could get, third grade reader,” Calloway said. “A school teacher put me to drawing a long time ago, drawing pictures.”

 Calloway’s work will be displayed in October at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore in an exhibition called “The Marriage of Art, Science and Philosophy.”

 Check out some of his work here and here.

Image from Birmingham news.