25-176 Lassiter 1971 Outsider Painting on Lucite 37 x 10

Offered here is a rare original painting on polymethyl methacrylate (brand name Lucite) signed by Charles Keeling Lassiter and dated 1971. It measures 37 x 10 as framed in glossy white wood with a spacer to protect the painted surface. A few minor signs of wear not unusual for a hard plastic surface from the early 1970s.

Charles Keeling Lassiter (1926-2005) was an Abstract Expressionist artist. His work often features lively, calligraphic figures and bizarre animals. He was considered a reclusive artist whose paintings are described as raw, primitive, and powerful. Lassiter lived entirely alone and became agoraphobic and only leaving his apartment for inspiration.

“For the type of work I do,” he said, “you have to be alone, to think alone — You have to just observe and capture that inner source.”

In 1956 curators from the Museum of Modern Art featured his work in a contemporary drawing exhibition. In addition to MoMA, his work is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Brooklyn Museum; the Yale University Art Gallery; the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, PA; and the Collection de l’Art Brut in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Bio credits: Bountiful Davis Art Center, Utah.