# Simon Sparrow > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Simon_Sparrow > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Simon_Sparrow.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Sparrow > Source revision: 1343421801 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{short description|American painter}} {{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](/source/Madison%2C_Wisconsin), US | field = [Painting](/source/Painting) and [mixed media](/source/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"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). or [West Africa](/source/West_Africa),{{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}} and grew up in [North Carolina](/source/North_Carolina) on a Cherokee Reservation. He was a self-taught artist and received a Wisconsin Visual Art Lifetime Achievement Award (WVALAA) in 2012.{{cite web|title=Wisconsin Visual Art Lifetime Achievement Awards: Simon Sparrow|url=http://www.wvalaa.com/inductee/simon-sparrow-91|accessdate=19 July 2013}} 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.{{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}} Simon Sparrow began creating art at age seven and also began his practice of informal and street preaching in his youth.{{cite news|title=Simon Sparrow|url=http://www.rawvision.com/articles/simon-sparrow|accessdate=19 July 2013|newspaper=Raw Vision|date=Spring 2001}} He moved to Philadelphia and enlisted in the army in 1942. He later moved to New York before settling in [Madison, Wisconsin](/source/Madison%2C_Wisconsin).''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 He died in a Madison nursing home in 2000.{{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](/source/Newspapers.com) |accessdate = March 19, 2019 }} {{Open access}} Sparrow is best known for his [mixed media](/source/mixed_media) constructions and paintings, which he began creating once he moved to Madison, Wisconsin in the 1970s. One of his pieces, "Simon Sparrow Outsider Art Picture, ca. 1980" was appraised on ''[Antiques Roadshow](/source/Antiques_Roadshow_(U.S.))'' in July 2009 for $6,000-8,000.{{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}} On 20 May 2012, Sparrow was posthumously awarded a WVALAA along with 13 other honorees.{{cite news|title=Local artist Evelyn Patricia Terry to be honored on May 20|newspaper=Milwaukee Courier|date=11 May 2012}} ==Exhibitions== Some exhibitions of note for Sparrow's work include: * "Great and Mighty Things" - [Philadelphia Museum of Art](/source/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." * "Off Center: Outsider Art in the Midwest" - [Minnesota Museum of American Art](/source/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."''The New York Times.'' Sunday, 1 May 1994. "Outsider Artists and a Beginner at Nearly Age 80." pg 34 * "Structure and Surface: Beads in Contemporary American Art" - [Renwick Gallery](/source/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."{{cite news|last=Stonesifer|first=Jene|title=Beads: More than Art on a String|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=9 August 1990|page=30}} * "37 Visionary Works of Outsider Art" - Princeton, [Carnegie Center for Art & History](/source/Carnegie_Center_for_Art_%26_History) (1987) ==References== {{Reflist}} ==External links== *[http://aavad.com/artistbibliog.cfm?id=1090 African American Visual Artists Database - Simon Sparrow Exhibitions] {{Authority control}} {{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 --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Simon Sparrow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Sparrow) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Sparrow?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.