THEY TAUGHT THEMSELVES

Thirty artisits, self-taught, and completely independent of tradition, most of them drawn from other walks of life (manufacturer, singer, house painter, blacksmith, storekeeper, housewife, milliner, cabinet maker, truck driver, Jack-of-All-Trades, and so on), here are men and women who are making their own paths in American art. Some of them have become famous (Morris Hirschfield, John Kane, Joseph Pickett); some were -- to me --wholly new names (Reyher, Litwak, Moses, Johnson, etc.) and among them were some of the reproductions I liked best. Here is a catalogue of their lives. (interesting for their very differences), and of their best work, with analysis concentrated on the pictures shown in this volume. Some of the pictures seemed to deserve the definition, -- ""exciting dish of pigment""; others were revealing of what the 20th century primitive painters can and are doing. I finished the book with a greater sympathy and better understanding of the modern primitives.