Mose Tolliver, folk artist

FOLK ARTIST Mose Tolliver, whose self-portraits and vivid images of nature and the female form, done in humble house paint, made him one of the leaders of the modern-day “outsider art” movement, has died.

He was in his 80s. The self-taught artist, who signed his work Mose T, died of pneumonia.He did not have a confirmed year of birth; many references cite 1919 or 1920.”Mose Tolliver’s lyrical visions of birds, flowers and women are sometimes nightmarish,” a Washington Post critic wrote when Tolliver’s work was included in the influential 1982 exhibit ‘Black Folk Art in America: 1930-1980’ at the Smithsonian’s Corcoran Gallery of Art.”His work was influenced by what he drew from his life,” said Micki Beth Stiller, a Montgomery lawyer and collector of Mose T and other outsider artists.”He painted in a simple, naive, direct style of things from his life.”Tolliver began painting in the 1960s after being severely injured while working in a furniture factory.He was said to have first gained notice when he hung his paintings on trees in his front yard and sold them for a few dollars to passers-by.Hangers for his pieces were often created from dental floss or pop tops from beverage cans.Anton Haardt, author of a ‘Mose T from A to Z: The Folk Art of Mose Tolliver’, was an early admirer and began buying his work and reselling it, getting it noticed by dealers.”I’d give all the money from the sales to Mose, and he would give me two paintings in return,” she said.Today, his paintings sell for thousands of dollars and are in numerous museum collections.Nampa-APThe self-taught artist, who signed his work Mose T, died of pneumonia.He did not have a confirmed year of birth; many references cite 1919 or 1920.”Mose Tolliver’s lyrical visions of birds, flowers and women are sometimes nightmarish,” a Washington Post critic wrote when Tolliver’s work was included in the influential 1982 exhibit ‘Black Folk Art in America: 1930-1980’ at the Smithsonian’s Corcoran Gallery of Art.”His work was influenced by what he drew from his life,” said Micki Beth Stiller, a Montgomery lawyer and collector of Mose T and other outsider artists.”He painted in a simple, naive, direct style of things from his life.”Tolliver began painting in the 1960s after being severely injured while working in a furniture factory.He was said to have first gained notice when he hung his paintings on trees in his front yard and sold them for a few dollars to passers-by.Hangers for his pieces were often created from dental floss or pop tops from beverage cans.Anton Haardt, author of a ‘Mose T from A to Z: The Folk Art of Mose Tolliver’, was an early admirer and began buying his work and reselling it, getting it noticed by dealers.”I’d give all the money from the sales to Mose, and he would give me two paintings in return,” she said.Today, his paintings sell for thousands of dollars and are in numerous museum collections.Nampa-AP