EXHIBITION: Charlie Lucas – “Talking to the Ancestors”

The Paul R. Jones Museum is proud to present Charlie Lucas: Talking to the Ancestors, October 2 – February 26, 2021.

The iconic, self-taught artist, Charlie Lucas, is the youngest of a pantheon of outsider artists who rose to public attention in the latter part of the twentieth century. Lucas bridges a couple of generations of artists, said museum director Daniel White, “Starting with Bill Traylor, then Jimmie Lee Sudduth and Mose T, Charlie is the last in a long lineage of black folk artists in Alabama that began over 100 years ago.” In his own family, Lucas is the descendent of several generations of artisans and craftspeople, including his grandfather and great grandfather who were blacksmiths. He traces his work directly from them.

“This show is a way for us to present Charlie to our public that will show decades of work brought together for the first time,” noted White, “While he is identified as a folk artist, this show will present his work in a manner that transcends folk art and hopefully create conversations of how limitless art can be. If you know Charlie Lucas, then you know he has no limits with his imagination, and the universe is his studio.”