Simon Sparrow

{{Infobox artist | bgcolour = | name = Simon Sparrow | image = | imagesize = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth date|1914|10|16|mf=y}} | birth_place = | death_date = {{death date and age|2000|09|26|1914|10|16|mf=y}} | death_place = Madison, Wisconsin, US | field = Painting and mixed media | training = self-taught | movement = | works = | patrons = | influenced by = | influenced = | awards = Wisconsin Visual Arts Lifetime Achievement Award }}

'''Simon Sparrow''' (October 16, 1914 – September 26, 2000) was an American folk artist, a painter and mixed media artist. He was born in Pennsylvania<ref>"United States Social Security Death Index," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JP8S-6ZK : 19 May 2014), Simon Sparrow, 26 Sep 2000; citing U.S. Social Security Administration, Death Master File, database (Alexandria, Virginia: National Technical Information Service, ongoing).</ref> or West Africa,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Krug |first1=Don Herbert |last2=Parker |first2=Ann |last3=Cardinal |first3=Roger |title=Miracles of the Spirit: Folk, Art, and Stories from Wisconsin |date=2005 |publisher=University Press of Mississippi |location=Jackson, MS |page=116}}</ref> and grew up in North Carolina on a Cherokee Reservation. He was a self-taught artist and received a Wisconsin Visual Art Lifetime Achievement Award (WVALAA) in 2012.<ref name="WVALAA web">{{cite web|title=Wisconsin Visual Art Lifetime Achievement Awards: Simon Sparrow|url=http://www.wvalaa.com/inductee/simon-sparrow-91|accessdate=19 July 2013}}</ref> Sparrow's work is considered folk art and his piece ''Assemblage with Found Objects'' is held by the Smithsonian American Art Museum on the 3rd Floor, Luce Foundation Center.<ref name="Assemblage">{{cite web|title=Assemblage with Found Objects by Simon Sparrow|url=http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=36533|work=Smithsonian American Art Museum, Luce Center|publisher=Smithsonian American Art Museum|accessdate=19 July 2013}}</ref>

Simon Sparrow began creating art at age seven and also began his practice of informal and street preaching in his youth.<ref name= RawVision>{{cite news|title=Simon Sparrow|url=http://www.rawvision.com/articles/simon-sparrow|accessdate=19 July 2013|newspaper=Raw Vision|date=Spring 2001}}</ref> He moved to Philadelphia and enlisted in the army in 1942. He later moved to New York before settling in Madison, Wisconsin.<ref name=Great&Mighty>''Philadelphia Tribune.'' 03 March 2013. ""Great and Mighty Things" presents drawings, paintings, sculptures, and other objects by twenty-seven self-taught artists." pg 4-5</ref> He died in a Madison nursing home in 2000.<ref>{{cite news|title=Madison Artist Simon Sparrow Dies at Age 85 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/29671778/simon_sparrow_19142000/ |newspaper=Wisconsin State Journal |date=September 28, 2000 |page=1 |via = Newspapers.com |accessdate = March 19, 2019 }} {{Open access}}</ref>

Sparrow is best known for his mixed media constructions and paintings, which he began creating once he moved to Madison, Wisconsin in the 1970s.<ref name=Great&Mighty/> One of his pieces, "Simon Sparrow Outsider Art Picture, ca. 1980" was appraised on ''Antiques Roadshow'' in July 2009 for $6,000-8,000.<ref name=AntiquesRoadshow>{{cite web|title=Antiques Roadshow, Madison Hour 3 (#1409)|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/appraisals/simon-sparrow-outsider-art-picture-ca-1980/|access-date=19 July 2013}}</ref> On 20 May 2012, Sparrow was posthumously awarded a WVALAA along with 13 other honorees.<ref>{{cite news|title=Local artist Evelyn Patricia Terry to be honored on May 20|newspaper=Milwaukee Courier|date=11 May 2012}}</ref>

==Exhibitions== Some exhibitions of note for Sparrow's work include: * "Great and Mighty Things" - Philadelphia Museum of Art (2013) Sponsored by Comcast Corporation and Duane Morris, this exhibition was organized around self-taught artists that worked in "remote or rural places with unconventional methods and with materials such as reclaimed wood, sheet metal, house paint, and stove soot."<ref name=Great&Mighty/> * "Off Center: Outsider Art in the Midwest" - Minnesota Museum of American Art (1996) * "Visionaries, Outsiders and Spiritualists: American Self-Taught Artists" (1994) Organized by Entourage: Exhibitions of Horsham, PA. this exhibit of 16 self-taught artists included some of Sparrow's "masklike heads (that) appear to radiate auras of energy, as if embodying a spiritual force."<ref name=OutsiderArtists>''The New York Times.'' Sunday, 1 May 1994. "Outsider Artists and a Beginner at Nearly Age 80." pg 34</ref> * "Structure and Surface: Beads in Contemporary American Art" - Renwick Gallery (1990) Featuring some of Sparrow's "untitled collages (that) combine commercial beads, stick figures and found objects such as rocks, metallic chains, glitter and tinsel to portray religious imagery."<ref>{{cite news|last=Stonesifer|first=Jene|title=Beads: More than Art on a String|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=9 August 1990|page=30}}</ref> * "37 Visionary Works of Outsider Art" - Princeton, Carnegie Center for Art & History (1987)

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== *[http://aavad.com/artistbibliog.cfm?id=1090 African American Visual Artists Database - Simon Sparrow Exhibitions]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sparrow, Simon}} Category:1914 births Category:2000 deaths Category:Artists from Madison, Wisconsin Category:Painters from Wisconsin Category:San Francisco Art Institute alumni Category:20th-century American painters Category:American male painters Category:American contemporary painters Category:American folk artists Category:Artists from North Carolina Category:20th-century American male artists