Sam Doyle
Encyclopedia
Sam Doyle was a Gullah
folk art
ist born
on Saint Helena Island, South Carolina
. He painted on scraps of wood and metal, documenting both St. Helena firsts and prominent members of the island community.
He was born the eighth of nine children and attended the Penn School, the first established in the south for free blacks, up through the ninth grade. One of his teachers there noted his talent for drawing and encouraged him to travel north to study art. He did not want to leave St. Helena; instead, he found work as a store clerk, a porter, and a laundry worker. He married in 1932 and had three children; his wife and children would later move up to New York
and leave him in St. Helena.
After retirement, Doyle resumed his childhood activity of painting in 1968, using house paint on large wooden boards and pieces of corrugated roofing tin. His yard became a makeshift museum of his work, and has received much attention from the mainstream art world after his death in 1985.
Gullah
The Gullah are African Americans who live in the Lowcountry region of South Carolina and Georgia, which includes both the coastal plain and the Sea Islands....
folk art
Folk art
Folk art encompasses art produced from an indigenous culture or by peasants or other laboring tradespeople. In contrast to fine art, folk art is primarily utilitarian and decorative rather than purely aesthetic....
ist born
on Saint Helena Island, South Carolina
Saint Helena Island, South Carolina
St. Helena Island is one of the Sea Islands in Beaufort County, South Carolina that are historic sites of early European colonization of North America. St. Helena is also the center of African-American Gullah culture and language. It is sometimes claimed to be the oldest settlement in the United...
. He painted on scraps of wood and metal, documenting both St. Helena firsts and prominent members of the island community.
He was born the eighth of nine children and attended the Penn School, the first established in the south for free blacks, up through the ninth grade. One of his teachers there noted his talent for drawing and encouraged him to travel north to study art. He did not want to leave St. Helena; instead, he found work as a store clerk, a porter, and a laundry worker. He married in 1932 and had three children; his wife and children would later move up to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and leave him in St. Helena.
After retirement, Doyle resumed his childhood activity of painting in 1968, using house paint on large wooden boards and pieces of corrugated roofing tin. His yard became a makeshift museum of his work, and has received much attention from the mainstream art world after his death in 1985.