Original Vintage Alfred Hair (1941-1971) Florida Highwaymen Oil Painting

Beautiful oil on Upson board 27" x 24.5" framed, an early work of sunrise cypress tree in the swamp by one of the first Florida Highwaymen painters. Although Harold Newton was the first to set the stage for the highwaymen style and marketing, Hair is credited with inspiring others to join and setting the tone for their works throughout the 1960s. His tragic death in 1971 cut short his dreams of artistic recognition, but his works are seen as an expression of the core work of the movement. Florida Highwaymen were a group of young African-American landscape and skyscape painters who painted their way out of the despair awaiting them as workers in Florida citrus groves and packing houses of the 1950s. Original members were James Gibson, Alfred Hair, Harold Newton and Livingston Roberts. Their major influence was Albert Backus (1906-1991), a white man often referred to as the Dean of Florida painters who had a fanciful formula involving huge cumulus clouds billowing over the ocean. Typically they painted on inexpensive materials such as Upson board, a roofer's material, and they sold their work out of the trunks of their cars. With paintings still wet, they loaded their vehicles and traveled the state's east coast, selling them door-to-door and store-to-store, in restaurants, offices, courthouses, and bank lobbies. Their work was rediscovered in the mid 1990's, and today is highly sought after and is recognized as Florida Folk Art - local pick up or in house shipping available