Ladsen, Nurse Midwife, circa 1980

Details

Sam Doyle (1906-1985)
Ladsen, Nurse Midwife, circa 1980
initialed S.D. lower right by the artist; inscribed Sam Doyle on figure's skirt
enamel on repurposed metal siding
41 ½ x 25 ½ in.

Literature

Gail Andrews Trechsel, ed., Pictured in My Mind: Contemporary American Self-Taught Art (Birmingham, Alabama, 1995), pp. 58, 60 fig. 30.

Exhibited

Birmingham, Alabama, Birmingham Museum of Art, Pictured in My Mind: Contemporary Self-Taught Art from the Collection of Dr. Kurt Gitter and Alice Rae Yelen, 4 February - 7 April 1996.

Lot Essay

Sam Doyle opened his “Out Door Art Gallery” in his yard on St. Helena Island, South Carolina, in the late 1960s. His paintings depicted people from within his Gullah community, as well as important political and social figures. This work shows midwife Lucinda Ladsen, Doyle's great-grandmother, who was the first African-American midwife on Saint Helena Island.

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