John Henry Toney
(1928–2019)
Place bornAlabama
Place diedAlabama
BiographyAlabama artist John Henry Toney (1928-2019) self-declared that his best work to be somewhere “between expert and genius.” He lived in Seale, Alabama, at the edge of a swamp marsh. He stopped drawing as a young man after being fired from a job because of an unflattering drawing that he had made of his boss. In 1994, as Toney was plowing a field, he turned up a turnip with a face on it. Believing that it was a sign from God, he resumed to draw. Love and water were apparently two of the guiding principles of Toney’s art and life. In fact, the late Frank Turner, owner of Mayors Office Folk Art Gallery in Pittsview, Alabama, quotes Toney as saying “Love and water are the two most powerful things on earth. You can’t live without love and you can’t live without water.” Toney’s self-identity arises from a world of the senses: the heaving sides of a bull; the sounds and warm fragrances of love-making. Men and beast reside in the physical world of survival, lust and desire. Source: Ann B. Oliver