Highwaymen Newton and Hair at Museum of Art : Ft. Lauderdale

Monday, 12 June 2006 10:50

Fort Lauderdale, FL – Highwaymen Newton and Hair : The American Dream in the Sunshine State, organized by the Museum of Art | Fort Lauderdale, on exhibit through November 30, 2006.  The exhibition has been generously funded in part with a grant from The Links, Incorporated, Fort Lauderdale Chapter.

In 1950s and 1960s Florida, a group of 26 loosely-affiliated African-American artists (among them only one female) looked to the pristine Florida land- and seascapes – and to the burgeoning population with its new homes, offices and motels as a market for their art – as a way to improve their lives and economic prospects.  Talented and driven, these artists’ paintings captured the tranquil beauty of Florida, a dream-like place of pristine beaches, palm trees and sunshine.  Through their art, the Highwaymen endeavored to sell the particular American dream of life in Florida’s tropical paradise. 

Among the leaders of the Highwaymen were two artists, Hair and Newton, as diverse in their personalities and approach to their craft as their subjects were similar.

Alfred Hair - As an artist, he was talented and quick with a unique flair for color.  While he enjoyed painting, his motivation to create was not so much for art’s sake as it was for the profit it derived.  He enjoyed gathering his artist friends around – the other Highwaymen – having convinced them that selling their works was a great way to make a living.  Hair and his friends would paint through the night while barbequing, drinking beer and enjoying good times together.  Hair and his friends often produced 20 or more paintings a night, selling them along the highways out of the backs of their cars or door-to-door – sometimes with the oils still wet – the following day.  The paintings were thought to be inexpensive and almost disposable by those who purchased them at the time, but the artists didn’t mind.  It afforded them a lifestyle of comfort, good times and ready cash.

Harold Newton - By comparison, was serious, methodical, and an exceedingly gifted artist. He painted in near seclusion, often living in a trailer and moving up and down the Florida coastline or inland into the everglades.  His works depict a profoundly beautiful world, almost ethereal in nature, of unspoiled, Eden-like locations indicative of the carefree beauty of undeveloped Florida.  Newton’s works represented the ideal that the other Highwaymen strived in vain to emulate.  Newton is more disciplined in his approach – unrushed and more formally resolved and nuanced.

“As leaders of the Highwaymen movement, the works of Newton and Hair play an important role in the imaginings of a Florida before population booms and urban sprawl,” said Irvin Lippman, President and Executive Director of the Museum of Art | Fort Lauderdale.  “The paintings reflect a compelling, romantic and idealized sense of place where many Americans at the time wished they could be – and still do today.  More importantly,” Lippman continued, “the Highwaymen represent a group of individuals that, due to the issues of race that were prevalent in the segregated South, used their talents to create new opportunities of prosperity for themselves.”

The exhibition, curated by Gary Monroe, author of the 2001 book The Highwaymen: Florida's African-American Landscape Painters, focuses on the works of Hair and Newton.  "Their lives and paintings are case studies about issues of representation, originality, and taste,” said Monroe.  “Furthermore, ideas of consumerism, lifestyle, society, and race – from Jim Crow laws to Black Power – are germane when considering the Highwaymen gestalt."

The art of the Highwaymen captures a nostalgia that exists outside the critical mainstream but most definitely within the larger American consumer society.  Monroe has called their work "picture windows, framing an idealized version of reality that reflected boom time home owner's aspirations."

The exhibition – the first major show exploring the artistic and cultural context of the work of the Highwaymen, in particular Alfred Hair and Harold Newton – includes 44 works by these two artists (22 works from each) and will be accompanied by a catalog with essays by Monroe and Annegreth Nill, chief curator at the Museum of Art | Fort Lauderdale.  Visit : http://www.moafl.org/