Lot 177 email save

Ellis Ruley Hippos.

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c. 1950's. Oil on masonite. Image is 24"w x 30"h. Framed: 29.5"w x 35.5"h. Provenance: Purchased from the Janet Fleisher Gallery. The Jonathan Demme Collection. Illustrated in Discovering Ellis Ruley. Est. $18,000 - $25,000. Ship: $50 Ellis Walter Ruley (1882-1959). Ruley was an African American primitive self-taught artist living in a suburban white neighborhood in CT. Having come into a bit a money after an accident and after marrying a white woman, Ruley died a suspicious death, long suspected to have been connected with the large Klan population living in Greenwich. Throughout the 1950s, Ellis sold his work at the local art fairs for a few dollars each. Joseph Gualtieri, the curator of the Stately Slater Museum, noticed Ellis’ talent and once tried to help Mr. Ruley sell his works. But he said in an interview that in the early 1950s (ironically) there was no interest among New York’s dealers for an African-American primitive artist. The world finally discovered Ellis W. Ruley’s art in the 1990s, thanks to Glenn Robert Smith, author of, “Discovering Ellis Ruley: The Story of an American Outsider Artist,” and an exhibition that traveled to major U.S. cities and attracted network coverage on “60 Minutes” and other programs.

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