William Hawkins

the long version

The first book of paintings - 121 reproductions - by a brilliant twentieth-century folk artist: a self-taught master, who began to paint when he was ten years old and won national recognition at the age of eighty-five. William Hawkins was born and raised on a small Kentucky farm. Needing to express himself, he used whatever materials were at hand - glossy enamels (ordinary house paints), large pieces of Masonite, heavy paper or cardboard rescued from trash heaps. He painted continuously, earning his living as a truck driver, among other things. His intense, wondrous, quirky paintings are filled with images - startling and playful - that derive from an unruly but inspired sense of freedom and humor. Here are wild animals - an elephant with a striped tusk and trunk... a stag, wide-eyed and startled, looking out from a masklike face; cityscapes; historical and modern landmark architecture; images made from photographs; a red Ferris wheel; a short humpbacked creature with a cone hat, a beak, and a single, pasted-on eye.