"The artist really should be lost to history, and certainly these drawings should," said curator Tom Parker of his unusual and mysterious upcoming exhibition. The exhibited works are by outsider artist Edward Deeds, a mental patient at a Nevada, Missouri?s State Hospital for almost 40 years.
Deeds, who was diagnosed with dementia praecox and schizophrenia, was committed to a mental institution in 1936. Beyond this fact we know little about Deeds' condition, personality or life, although curator Parker sees all he needs to in Deeds' artwork. "The images have one fabulous clue on every page," Parker explained. "State Lunatic Asylum, written on the paper by the hospital. One poetic detail which encapsulates everything you need to know about the artist and his circumstance."
Deeds' drawings, crafted on the official hospital stationary, radiate a remarkable innocence given the circumstances of their creation. Whimsical lions, wide-eyed characters and vintage vehicles comprise a pictorial land far beyond the mental facility walls. The only reminder of Deeds' dark reality is recurrence of the letters ?ECT,? a likely acronym for the controversial shock treatment known as electroconvulsive therapy.
At the time of Deeds' death he gave his collection of drawings to his mother, who passed them to her other son who stored them in his attic. Years later the drawings were tossed out to a curbside junk pile when they were miraculously stumbled upon by a fourteen-year-old boy who became fascinated with Deeds' details. He kept the works safe for 36 years.
The precious drawings, both unpretentious and cryptic, present an idyllic vision from a mysterious perspective. The story of their creation and survival is as magnetic as the raw emotion in his innocent crayon strokes. Thirty of Deeds' works will show at Hirschl & Adler Modern early next year.
Talisman of the Ward: The Album of Drawings by Edward Deeds will show from January 10 until February 9, 2013 at Hirschl & Adler Modern.
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/29/edward-deeds-outsider-art-mental-institution_n_2370637.html
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