Looking for the name of an artist in New York from the 1950s or 1960s

January 20, 2011 2:04 PM

Looking for the name of a New York artist from the 1950's or 1960's.

I remember reading an article about an artist (probably a painter) and want to read more about him. Problem is, I can't remember his name.

Here are some details I do remember:

-Began producing works in the 1950s and 1960s.
-Rejected the style of the New York School or whatever else was prevalent at the time.
-Produced hundreds of works of art in the evenings, when he came home from his normal job. These were not discovered until he was either very old or deceased.

I know it's not a lot to go on, but any suggestions would be much appreciated.

posted by reenum to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

Possibly Ray Johnson?
posted by scody at 2:13 PM on January 20, 2011

Henry Darger was a janitor and lived in Chicago, but he's famous for the massive amount of artwork discovered after his death.
posted by lhall at 3:21 PM on January 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

Joseph Cornell?
posted by mareli at 3:28 PM on January 20, 2011

Joseph Cornell? He started earlier than 1950s though.
posted by mareli at 3:29 PM on January 20, 2011

Albert York? He just died recently, but was known to have rejected pretty much all "schools", the New York school included. I read an article about him many years ago, probably in The New Yorker, and he worked construction jobs for a long time and would paint his pictures on pieces of scrap plywood found at his job sites. Some in the know considered him a "painter's painter", and he apparently had a dedicated following of collectors.
posted by motown missile at 4:14 PM on January 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

That sounds a lot more like Albert York than Joseph Cornell--Cornell was a big favorite of the cognoscenti and exhibited frequently in his lifetime. He was a reclusive man, but not antagonistic to the larger art world the way York was.
posted by Sidhedevil at 4:50 PM on January 20, 2011