Untitled198950 1/2 × 62 1/4"Enamel and printed matter on MasoniteGift of Frank Maresca and Roger Ricco2008.24.101548554147William L. HawkinsPaintingslower right: 'KY JULY271895'
bottom edge: 'WILLAM.L.HAWKINS.BORN'ColumbusColumbusUnited StatesOhioPaintingsColumbus“When I’ll die, my painting will die with me,” declared William L. Hawkins—a statement that exemplifies how the creative act becomes inseparable from the individual. This artwork, created a year before Hawkins’s death, offers a spiritual experience of disembodiment and elevation. Our eyes travel in a clockwise loop from the buildings at the top—which gradually lose their weight and materiality to become ghostly skeletons—swoop down through the verticality of the trees, and finally fly over peaceful landscapes and reach the sky.
Valérie Rousseau, "Untitled," exhibition label for Self-Taught Genius: Treasures from the American Folk Art Museum. Stacy C. Hollander and Valérie Rousseau, curators. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2014.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.orgreviewed for the IMLS Neurodiversity Project by Art Bridges Fellow Austin Losada 2026.19891989 2008 24 1 “When I’ll die, my painting will die with me,” declared William L. Hawkins—a statement that exemplifies how the creative act becomes inseparable from the individual. This artwork, created a year before Hawkins’s death, offers a spiritual experience of disembodiment and elevation. Our eyes travel in a clockwise loop from the buildings at the top—which gradually lose their weight and materiality to become ghostly skeletons—swoop down through the verticality of the trees, and finally fly over peaceful landscapes and reach the sky.
Valérie Rousseau, "Untitled," exhibition label for Self-Taught Genius: Treasures from the American Folk Art Museum. Stacy C. Hollander and Valérie Rousseau, curators. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2014.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.orgreviewed for the IMLS Neurodiversity Project by Art Bridges Fellow Austin Losada 2026.