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Joseph Elmer Yoakum
American nationality
Born in Window Rock, Arizona, on February 20th, 1886 or 1888
Dies in Chicago on December 25th, 1972
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| His background remains a mystery. He says he is "the
old black man", a Navajo Indian. But the Navajo Tribunal Office has not
found any member of his tribe with this name. He goes to elementary school
for six months. At the age of fifteen, he runs away with the Adams Forpaugh
Circus. He becomes a sailor and says he has gone around the world, except
to Antarctica, as he likes to add. He comes back to the United States, gets
married for the first time and leaves a year later for South America. During
the First World War, he serves in a regiment stationed in Clermont-Ferrand.
He returns to the United States and gets married for the second time in
1929. |
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| In the 50s, he settles permanently with his second
wife in Chicago, where he has a little shop and sells bric-a-brac and paintings. |
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| His drawings represent landscapes from his real or
imaginary travels: mountains, roads, rivers, stylized animals and trees.
He says to be inspired and guided by God. He uses ballpoint pen, felt-tip
pen, watercolors and pastels. On some of his works he writes the name of
the country and the place he depicts. He even adds the address with the
zip code, the date and copyright. Then he hangs the drawing in his store
to sell it. |
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| Yoakum's work has something strange about it: it reminds
us of human or animal organs. His mountains look like a section of the brain,
and his rivers like blood vessels. We are far from a naive vision or from
a genre scene version of a landscape. Maybe his travels are those of a man
searching for himself, a trip within his own cells. |
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