biographie de Joseph Elmer YOAKUM (1886/88-1972)

Birth place: Arizona

Addresses: Chicago, IL

Profession: Painter

Comments: Born on a Navajo reservation in Arizona, Yoakum claims to have run away from home as a teenager and to have worked with a number of circuses. After serving in France during WWI, he lived the life of an itinerant, working in various places until settling in Chicago. He began painting in 1962, creating visionary-like landscapes (in watercolor and pen) which he described as portraits of places he had visited.

Sources: Finch, American Watercolors, 57; Jane Livingston and John Beardsley, Black Folk Art in America, 1930-1980 (Jackson, MS, 1982), 163.