George Paul Kornegay
George Paul Kornegay (November 23, 1913 – June 3, 2014) was an American folk and outsider artist, and minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, who created a large Christian visionary environment with found objects near Brent, Alabama.
Early life and career
His father later bought 28 acres of land near Brent, Alabama and a two-story house from a Cherokee, Charles Hogan, for $100. The property was situated on a Native American burial ground and Kornegay recounted that his daughter could "hear voices out here talking but she can't tell us what they're talking about. This is one of them places where you can come when you're feeling bad and go away lifted up. They all say this is a sacred place."[1] Kornegay worked at a steel mill, Century Foundry, in Tuscaloosa and later described his working life as "From a plow to a preacher, from a preacher to a steel mill, from a steel mill to a veneer mill. Double shifts I worked. And a cotton sack, and a plow, and a saw mill, and a paper mill, and all that stuff: had to make a living for my people".[1]
Marriage and religious calling
Art practice
In 1960, Kornegay began to create a large narrative artwork (or "visionary environment") on a two acre site on a hill near his house using paintings, found objects and sculpture, but only worked full time on the project after his retirement in 1980.[2][3] Kornegay gave several names to his visionary environment including The New Jerusalem, Seven Holy Mountains, Art Hill, and the Sacred Mountain.[4]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedSGD - ↑ Sellen, Betty-Carol (2016). Self-Taught, Outsider and Folk Art: A Guide to American Artists, Locations and Resources (Third ed.). Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. p. 184. ISBN 978-0-7864-7585-8.
- ↑ Carol Crown; Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts (2004). Coming Home!: Self-taught Artists, the Bible, and the American South. Univ. Press of Mississippi. p. 95. ISBN 978-1-57806-659-9.
- ↑ Carol Crown; Cheryl Rivers; Charles Reagan Wilson (June 3, 2013). The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 23: Folk Art. UNC Press Books. p. 331. ISBN 978-1-4696-0799-3.
- 1913 births
- 2014 deaths
- 20th-century American painters
- African-American men centenarians
- African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church clergy
- American men centenarians
- American folk artists
- Artists from Alabama
- American outsider artists
- Painters from Alabama
- People from Bibb County, Alabama
- Religious artists
- 20th-century African-American painters
- 21st-century African-American artists