Traveling the Rainbow: The Life and Art of Joseph E. Yoakum

by Derrel B. DePasse

The first full-length celebration of an African American and Native American self-taught master's landscapes and travels In The New York Times , Wendy Steiner named Joseph E. Yoakum (1890-1972) one of the six masters among American outsider artists. John Perreault wrote in The Village Voice , "The discovery of an authentic 'naive' artist such as Yoakum does not happen very often so it is cause for some celebration." With 50 color and 145 black-and-white reproductions, Traveling the The Life and Art of Joseph E. Yoakum is a fitting tribute to this fascinating creator of visionary landscapes. Despite the initial excitement of his discovery, relatively little was known of the life of this artist. What emerges in Traveling the Rainbow fits an adventure novel. Yoakum traveled the oceans on steamliners working in their boiler rooms. He rode America's railways as an inspector. With an elite team of African American troops in World War I, he toured Europe. On the road with the Ringling Brothers Circus he posted circus flyers. He spent a year in a psychiatric hospital. Late in his life he created majestic, animated landscapes infused with the motion and energy of travel. Part African American, part Native American, Yoakum drew on his dual background and conjured powerful forms of expression -- the blues and Native American symbolism -- to create dynamic cultural fusions. Traveling the Rainbow corrects major biographical errors published in numerous artist anthologies and exhibition catalogues. Much of what he told about his life -- especially about his travels -- was thought to be invented, but Derrel DePasse makes startling discoveries about the artist's landscapes and finds that much of his story of himself was grounded in fact. Intimate and panoramic, Yoakum's water-color and pencil drawings are compared to the work of artists as diverse as William Blake and Thomas Moran. His life spanned the golden epochs of the American railroad, the traveling circus, and the unique American musical idiom known as the blues. This book reveals how the artist recorded his memories of these both in his landscapes, as well as in a small number of distinctive portraits of prominent African Americans. Derrel B. DePasse is president of the Blauvelt Group. She is a contributing author to Self-Taught Artists of the Twentieth An American Anthology (Museum of American Folk Art/Chronicle Books, 1998).

Genres: Art

166 pages, Paperback

First published December 7, 2000

Reviews

[Samuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yoakum was a genuine genius, one of America's truly important self-taught artists. This book is worth picking up just to get the chance to see some of his work.

The surrounding text sort of varies in value. Some of it, like the bits pointing out how the iconography of travel postcards seems to have influenced Yoakum's compositions, was genuinely fascinating. Some of the rest of it really felt like pareidolia, as the author tries to identify hidden animals and tribal symbols in Yoakum's swirling landscapes. The text is probably three stars, but there's enough of Yoakum's art on these pages for me to bump the book as a whole up a star.

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The artist is very interesting and I do like his art. The book I feel tried a little too hard and over analyzed his art a little too much. The author tried to say his art had all these purposeful subliminal messages and pictures in them and meant all these different things. I just don't think so. This is worth picking up though to see a local Chicago self taught artist who's work heavily influenced artists in the Chicago Imagist movement. One of whom (Jim Nutt) has a show up right now at the MCA in Chicago. It is worth a look but not sure if it is worth actually reading. The Author tried a little too hard to make the artist seem more academic than he was.