
I just heard a terrific
Wisconsin Public Radio show featuring the chief curator of the
Milwaukee Art Museum. Through January 13, 2008, self-taught folk artist
Martín Ramírez (1895–1963) is the subject of their
featured exhibition. He came to the United States from Mexico in 1925 and worked on the railroad and in the mines of Northern California for 5 years before he was picked up for homelessness and institutionalized. He spent the last 30 years of his life in "asylums", probably wrongly diagnosed as schizophrenic, making large scale drawings and collages which were thrown away (for 15 years!) until a professor, curiously of both psychology and art, happened upon some of his work while visiting the asylum. It was thought for a long time that many of his paintings depicted the Statue of Liberty until the art world realized they were Madonnas modeled on those of his Spanish Catholic roots. Kathleen Dunn, host of the WPR program, raved about the sheer beauty of the pieces, which is all the more incredible as one learns that he used available materials such examining room paper, cups from the water cooler, and mashed potato paste and oatmeal for glue for his collages.
This Wikipedia
article has some good links.
I haven't seen the museum since the "
wings" were added in 2001, but this story is great motivation for a road trip