About the Artists:The Highwaymen
Click on any image to enlarge.

In 1995, art critic Jim Fitch in an article for Antiques & Art Around Florida (Winter/Spring 1995 issue) bestowed the name "The Highwaymen" on a group of black artists who have been working on the East coast of Florida from approximately 1955 to the present. He chose the name "The Highwaymen" for the artists, because their marketing and sales strategy consisted of traveling the highways and byways of central Florida peddling their paintings out of the back of their cars. While some of the original artists are still living, in other parts of the country they are still relatively unknown and have not yet received proper credit for their contribution to Florida's art tradition. It was these artists, in fact, who were the bare bones beginning for Florida's resident/regional art tradition. Further, their paintings met a growing demand for regional Florida art and served to encourage what has become the Indian River school of painting, perhaps the only school or movement within the state that is recognizable as such.

The story of the Highwaymen begins with one man, now deceased, who has come to be known as the dean of Florida landscape painters, A. E. "Bean" Backus of Fort Pierce. Backus's career began to blossom in 1950, about the time he married. After Backus lost his much loved wife to complications from heart surgery in 1955, he devoted himself to his art, the daily consumption of a quantity of rum, good conversation, and good friends.

Although Bean was a white Southerner during a time when racial equality was not yet taken seriously, he was a friend to all. This characteristic, coupled with a natural Bohemian bent, made him the perfect mentor to a group of young black men who had noted the apparent ease with which he made a living.

Backus SOLD

Backus SOLD

Painting, for them, was perceived as being a way out of the fields and groves. Most of these young men were content to learn by osmosis, by observation. Bean's studio became a place to congregate.

One seemed more eager to learn than the others. His name was Alfred Hair. Alfred was the only one of this group of black men to take formal lessons from Bean and even accompanied him to the Bahamas on occasion. Apparently Alfred had an entrepreneurial spirit because he later organized some of the others who had hung around Bean's studio and began to "mass produce" Florida landscape paintings. They were usually done on Upsom board with whatever materials were at hand, including house paint. It seems that Alfred employed specialists. Some were tree painters, some painted only skies, others did water. Who signed the paintings was of little concern to anyone.

Unfortunately, Alfred Hair was killed in a barroom brawl. Lacking his organizational skills, most of the others went their own ways and began to paint and sell for themselves. Not all of these artists were content to paint by formula. Some went on to develop their talents and skills and have gained respectable reputations. Some retained the highway sales technique.

A few of the more capable artists in this remaining group were Harold Newton, who was subsequently incapacitated by a stroke, George Buckner, whose works were already selling near the thousand dollar mark in 1995, (George and his brother Ellis, deceased, once operated a gallery in Coral Gables) and Al Black, who in Fitch's opinion most typified the Highwaymen. Others of the group included Sam Newton, James Gibson, Roy McLendon and Mary Carroll.

Fitch felt that paintings by these artists could be placed in two categories. Those reflecting the strong influence of the groups' mentor, A. E. “Bean” Backus, and, secondly, others that are more an individual interpretation. Fitch wrote in 1997 that Harold Newton was certainly the most accomplished of the former, although James Gibson and Sam Newton showed promise.

The second category is more difficult to describe, he wrote. It has some of the elements of “primitive” art, although not every one can agree what that is, and it can resemble genuine folk art, meaning it is free of artifice and undue influence from the academic art community. It might be considered less perfect realistically but more powerful emotionally.

It’s also difficult to identify the artists who best represent either style because there’s some of each in all. Mary Carroll’s early works are very individual, as are some paintings by J. Daniels and Al Black. Fitch lamented the later commercialization of The Highwaymen, saying he feared that many had begun to produce work to "match the sofa".

Fitch suggested that astute collectors would seek out the older, better quality work and predicted that history will make a place for these artists who were the real beginning of a young, but rich, art tradition. Paintings on Upson board, because it has not been manufactured for quite some time, are considered a reliable indicator of early work by any of the Highwaymen.

Click on images displayed below to enlarge: