Editing Joseph Yoakum

{{Short description|20th century African-American outsider artist}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=August 2013}}
{{More citations needed|date=May 2011}}
{{Infobox artist
| name             = Joseph Yoakum
| image            = Yoakum.png
| birth_name       = Joseph Elmer Yoakum
| birth_date       = c. {{Birth date|1891|2|22}}
| birth_place      = [[Ash Grove, Missouri]], U.S.
| death_date       = {{Death date and age|1972|12|25|1891|2|22}}
| death_place      = Rock Island, Rock Island County, Illinois, U.S.
| field            = Illustration, drawing
| training         = Self-taught
| movement         = [[Outsider art]]
| patrons          = John Hopgood, [[Whitney Halstead]], [[Ray Yoshida]]
}}

'''Joseph Elmer Yoakum''' (c. February 22, 1891 – December 25, 1972)<ref>{{Cite web|title=Joseph E. Yoakum|url=https://americanart.si.edu/artist/joseph-e-yoakum-5515|access-date=2022-02-17|website=Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM)|language=en-US}}</ref> was an American self-taught painter.<ref name=":0">{{Cite magazine|last=Atkins|first=Jacqueline M.|date=Winter 1989|title=Joseph E. Yoakum: Visionary Traveler|url=https://issuu.com/american_folk_art_museum/docs/clarion_15_1_win1989-90|magazine=The Clarion|language=en|publisher=American Folk Art Museum|pages=50–57|access-date=2022-02-17}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Rexer|first=Lyle|date=2022-02-01|title=Joseph E. Yoakum: What I Saw|url=https://brooklynrail.org/2022/02/artseen/Joseph-E-Yoakums-What-I-Saw|access-date=2022-02-17|website=The Brooklyn Rail|language=en-US}}</ref> He was of African-American and possibly of Native American–descent, and was known for his landscape paintings in the [[outsider art]]-style.<ref name=NYT/><ref>{{Cite news|last=Steiner|first=Wendy|date=1996-03-10|title=Art View; In Love With the Myth of the 'Outsider'|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/10/arts/art-view-in-love-with-the-myth-of-the-outsider.html|access-date=2022-02-17|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> He was age 76 when he started to record his memories in the form of imaginary landscapes and produced over 2,000 drawings during the last decade of his life.

==Early life==
Joseph Elmer Yoakum's biographical information is difficult to verify but he also claimed to be of African, French, and Cherokee descent.<ref name="Foun" /> New York Times critic Will Heinrich called his biography "tricky...It’s poorly documented, and the artist himself was not a reliable narrator."<ref name="Heinrich">{{Cite news|last=Heinrich|first=Will|date=2021-12-22|title=Joseph E. Yoakum Isn't Who You Think|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/22/arts/design/joseph-yoakum-moma.html|access-date=2021-12-27|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> His birthdates have also been given as 1886, 1888, and 1891, and his Veteran's Administration record says he was born in [[Springfield, Missouri]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Spriggs|first1=Lynne E.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wA4WZ4uzL8oC&dq=%22Joseph+Elmer+Yoakum%22+Ash+Grove+MO&pg=PA174|title=Let it Shine: Self-taught Art from the T. Marshall Hahn Collection|last2=Cubbs|first2=Joanne|date=2001|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|isbn=978-1578063635|page=174}}</ref> A 9 year old Joe Yoakum does show up in the 1900 U.S. census in Greene County, Missouri, listed as Black with his father's birthplace being listed as Indian Territory.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/29473628:7602 | title= Join Ancestry®| website=[[Ancestry.com]] }}</ref> His father John Yoakum is listed in the 1880 census as Black with his birthplace listed as Cherokee Nation.

Yoakum was born in [[Ash Grove, Missouri]], but told a story of being born in [[Arizona]], in 1888, as a [[Navajo Nation|Navajo Indian]] on the Window Rock Navajo reservation.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{cite web |title=Joseph Yoakum |url=http://ci13.cmoa.org/artists/joseph-yoakum |website=Carnegie Museum of Art |access-date=16 December 2018}}</ref><ref name="Cong" /> Taking pride in his exaggerated Native heritage, Yoakum would pronounce "Navajo" as "Na-va-JOE" (as in "Joseph"). He spent his early childhood on a Missouri farm.<ref name="gse">{{cite web|title=Joseph E. Yoakum (1886-1972)|url=https://www.gseart.com/artist/Joseph-e-Yoakum/bio|access-date=16 December 2018|website=Galerie St. Etienne}}</ref> 

Yoakum left home when he was nine years old to join the [[Hagenbeck–Wallace Circus|Great Wallace Circus]]. As a bill poster, he also traveled across the U.S. with [[Buffalo Bill]]'s Wild West Show and the [[Ringling Brothers]], among the five different [[circus (performing art)|circuses]]. He later traveled to Europe as a stowaway.

In 1908, he returned to Missouri and started a family with his girlfriend Myrtle Julian, with whom he had his first son in 1909; the couple married in 1910.<ref name=":1" /> Around 1916, he worked in a coal mine, Hale Coal and Mining to support his family.<ref name=":1" /> Yoakum was drafted into the [[United States Army]] in 1918 and worked in the [[805th Pioneer Infantry]] repairing roads and railroads.<ref name=":1" /> After the war, he traveled around the United States, working odd jobs, but never returned to his family. He later remarried and moved to Chicago. In 1946, Yoakum was committed to a psychiatric hospital there. He soon left and by the early 1950s he was drawing on a regular basis.

==Artistic work==
[[File:Artwork by Joseph E. Yoakum.jpg|thumb|One of Yoakum's drawings|260x260px]]Yoakum was again living and painting in Chicago by 1962. Tom Brand, owner of Galaxy Press on the south side of Chicago, in 1968 had some printing to deliver to a coffee shop called "The Whole". While there he noticed the colored pencil drawings of Yoakum and was immediately taken by them. Brand had an account with the Ed Sherbyn Gallery on the north side of Chicago, and he persuaded Sherbyn to exhibit Yoakum's works and even printed his own poster for this show. Norman Mark of ''[[Chicago Daily News|The Chicago Daily News]]'' wrote an article about Yoakum called "My drawings are a spiritual unfoldment"; this article was printed on the back of the poster. Brand informed his artist friends (including [[Whitney Halstead]]) about Yoakum and encouraged them to visit "The Whole" coffee shop. Halstead, an artist and instructor at the [[School of the Art Institute of Chicago]], became the greatest promoter of Yoakum's work during his lifetime. He believed that his story was "more invention than reality... in part myth, Yoakum's life as he would have wished to have lived it."<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Depasse|first=Derrel B.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4otJY4P1bJoC|title=Traveling the Rainbow: The Life and Art of Joseph E. Yoakum|publisher=University Press of Mississippi; [[Museum of American Folk Art]]|year=2001|isbn=1-57806-248-9|pages=3, 9, 11}}</ref>

In 1967, Yoakum was discovered by the mainstream art community through John Hopgood, an instructor at the [[Chicago State College]], who saw Yoakum's work hanging in his studio window and purchased twenty-two pictures. A group of students including [[Roger Brown (artist)|Roger Brown]], [[Gladys Nilsson]], [[Jim Nutt]], and [[Barbara Rossi (artist)|Barbara Rossi]], and teachers at the School of the [[Art Institute of Chicago]], including [[Ray Yoshida]] and [[Whitney Halstead]], took an interest in promoting his work. In 1972, just one month before his death, Yoakum was given a one-man show at the [[Whitney Museum]] in New York City.<ref>{{Cite news|date=1995-02-03|title='Outsider' Artist, And His Art, Still A Mystery|language=en|work=Chicago Tribune|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/1995/02/03/outsider-artist-and-his-art-still-a-mystery/|access-date=2017-09-21}}</ref>

He started drawing familiar places, such as ''Green Valley Ashville Kentucky'', as a method to capture his memories. However, he shifted towards imaginary landscapes in places he had never visited, like ''Mt Cloubelle of West India'' or ''Mt Mowbullan in Dividing Range near Brisbane Australia''. Drawing outlines with ballpoint pen, rarely making corrections, he colored his drawings within the lines using watercolors and pastels. He became known for his organic forms, always using two lines to designate land masses.

During the final four months of his life Yoakum's work was marked by a use of pure abstraction, as in his illustration ''Flooding of Sock River through Ash Grove Mo [Missouri] on July 4, 1914 in that [waters] drove many persons from Homes I were with the Groupe {{sic|leiving}} their homes for safety''. That painting was one of his autobiographical works.

In 2018–19 Yoakum's work was included in the exhibition ''Outliers and American Vanguard Art'' at the National Gallery of Art, High Museum of Art, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Outliers and American Vanguard Artist Biographies |url=https://www.nga.gov/features/exhibitions/outliers-and-american-vanguard-artist-biographies.html |access-date=2023-02-09 |website=www.nga.gov}}</ref> Following this event, Venus Over Manhattan presented an exhibition featuring more than sixty works on paper, which constituted the largest collection of Yoakum’s art assembled in New York since 1972.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Saltz |first=Jerry |date=2019-07-15 |title=Why Did It Take So Long for the World to Recognize the Genius of Joseph Yoakum? |url=https://www.vulture.com/2019/07/joseph-elmer-yoakum-venus-over-manhattan.html |access-date=2024-06-14 |website=Vulture |language=en}}</ref> In 2021, the [[Museum of Modern Art]] presented more than 100 of his works in an exhibition called ''Joseph E. Yoakum: What I Saw.''<ref>{{Cite web|title=Joseph E. Yoakum: What I Saw|url=https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5320|access-date=2021-12-27|website=The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)|language=en}}</ref> It was organized by the [[Art Institute of Chicago]], the Museum of Modern Art, and the Menil Drawing Institute, which is part of the [[Menil Collection]].<ref name="Heinrich"/> His work is represented in the National Gallery of Art, among other institutions.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Artist Info |url=https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.46122.html |access-date=2023-02-09 |website=www.nga.gov}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist|refs=
<ref name="NYT">{{Cite news |title=The Outsiders at Rosa Esman Gallery |author=Raynor, Vivien |newspaper=The New York Times |date=January 17, 1986 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/17/arts/art-the-outsiders-at-rosa-esman-gallery.html%3Fpagewanted%3Dall |access-date=January 11, 2014 }}</ref>
<ref name="Cong">
   ''American Folk Art: A Regional Reference'', Kristin G. Congdon,
   Kara Kelley Hallmark, 2012, 728 pages, p.466, webpage:
   [https://books.google.com/books?id=MYUuFDEHmlsC&pg=PA466&lpg=PA466 BG-MYU]:
   notes "Mixed Media Landscape Artist" & "Window Rock Navajo reservation".
</ref><ref name="Foun">
   "Joseph Yoakum – Foundation for Self Taught Artists",
   FoundationStart.org, 2010, webpage:
   [http://foundationstart.org/artists/joseph-yoakum/  FS-yoak] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120419180008/http://foundationstart.org/artists/joseph-yoakum/ |date=April 19, 2012 }}.
</ref>
}}

== Further reading ==
* {{Cite book|last=Depasse|first=Derrel B.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4otJY4P1bJoC|title=Traveling the Rainbow: The Life and Art of Joseph E. Yoakum|publisher=University Press of Mississippi; [[Museum of American Folk Art]]|year=2001|isbn=1-57806-248-9}}
* {{Cite book|last1=Ash-Milby|first1=Kathleen|authorlink1=Kathleen Ash-Milby|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FAkrEAAAQBAJ|title=Joseph E. Yoakum: What I Saw|last2=Granzotto|first2=Clara|last3=Halstead|first3=Whitney|last4=Majeed|first4=Faheem|last5=Minton|first5=Laura K.|last6=Olek|first6=Emily|last7=Sutherland|first7=Ken|publisher=Yale University Press|year=2021|isbn=9780300257489|editor-last=Pascale|editor-first=Mark|editor-last2=Adler|editor-first2=Esther|editor-last3=Kopp|editor-first3=Edouard}}

==External links==
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Joseph Yoakum}}
* Atkins, Jacqueline M., [http://issuu.com/american_folk_art_museum/docs/clarion_15_1_win1989-90 "Joseph E. Yoakum: Visionary Traveler"] ''The Clarion'', Winter 1989/1990
* [http://ci13.cmoa.org/artists/joseph-yoakum Carnegie Museum of Art] 

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Yoakum, Joseph}}
[[Category:1890 births]]
[[Category:1972 deaths]]
[[Category:American outsider artists]]
[[Category:Artists from Missouri]]
[[Category:People from Ash Grove, Missouri]]
[[Category:American people of French descent]]
[[Category:20th-century American artists]]
[[Category:Artists from Chicago]]
[[Category:American people who self-identify as being of Cherokee descent]]
[[Category:20th-century African-American artists]]
[[Category:American landscape painters]]
[[Category:Self-taught artists]]