LOS ANGELES, CA.- Since 2012, Los Angeles based, advocate, scholar and collector Gordon W. Bailey has gifted many artworks created by untrained artists to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). At the end of 2024, he gifted 14 works created by Leroy Almon, Eddie Arning, Chris Benchetler, Sam Doyle, Roy Ferdinand, Mary L. Proctor, Samuel Pace, Herbert Singleton, Mose Tolliver, Purvis Young and Malcah Zeldis. The gifts join those previously received from Bailey including superb works made by Willie Birch, Minnie Evans, Josephus Farmer, Lonnie Holley, Robert Howell, Clementine Hunter, John K. Lawson, Charlie Lucas, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Sulton Rogers and Welmon Sharlhorne.
“Mr. Bailey’s unparalleled collection, tireless advocacy and scholarship are such fantastic assets to LACMA,” said CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director Michael Govan. "His expertise and sense of stewardship for the artists and their art makes his choice of LACMA as the home for the works all the more meaningful. I am thankful for his generosity, his support, and his deep commitment.”
Some of the artists’ works were included in exhibitions at LACMA, notably: Black American Portraits, curated by Christine Y. Kim and Liz Andrews (Doyle, Jake, Our Best.); View From Here: Recent Acquisitions, curated by Rita Gonzalez (Holley, African In A Cage Gasping For Air); 50 for 50: Gifts on the Occassion of LACMA’s Anniversary, curated by the museum’s director Michael Govan (Doyle, Jake, Our Best.; Hunter, Camitte The Hair Fixer Is Doing Ceola’s Hair; Farmer, The Plague Of Death In Egypt; Singleton, Who Do We Trust; Young, Untitled multi-panel assemblage); and Sam Doyle: The Mind’s Eye—Works from the Gordon W. Bailey Collection, curated by Franklin Sirmans.
Two important paintings by highly regarded Sam Doyle, who documented St. Helena Island, South Carolina’s unique Gullah culture and more generally African American achievement, were given in honor of esteemed Los Angelenos—Doyle’s tribute Jake, Our Best. in honor of the late Los Angeles Dodgers great Jackie Robinson and his distinguished wife, Rachel, founder of the Jackie Robinson Foundation, and the nostalgic Gulf 7¢ in honor of Ed Ruscha, a long time admirer of Doyle and subject of LACMA’s acclaimed retrospective Ed Ruscha / Now Then which included his 1985 tribute to Doyle Where Are You Going Man? (For Sam Doyle).
Other highlights from Bailey’s gifts include: Josephus Farmer’s masterfully carved wood bas relief The Plague of Death in Egypt which was featured in 50 for 50: Gifts on the Occassion of LACMA’s Anniversary; Sister Gertrude Morgan’s Revelation 6, a unique work created on a torn piece of vinyl window shade; Blood Runs Deeper Than Water a powerful post-Hurricane Katrina construction made with salvaged materials by former New Orleans’s artist John K. Lawson; the life-sized papier-mâché sculpture, Boy With Bike by Willie Birch; Herbert Singleton’s monumental carved and painted oak door Who Do We Trust, also featured in LACMA’s 50th; centenarian Clementine Hunter’s wonderful painted memory Camitte The Hair Fixer Is Doing Celoa’s Hair; and several powerful wood assemblages fashioned by Miami urban expressionist Purvis Young.
Bailey commented: “LACMA opened the door for the artists—each one is a new addition to its permanent collection. I am heartened by the museum’s sincere commitment to rectifying systemic inequities that have effectively denied many minority untrained artists fair review and canonical inclusion.”
The American Folk Art Museum, California African American Museum (CAAM), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Georgia Museum of Art, High Museum of Art Atlanta, Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville (MOCA JAX), Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art, Palm Springs Art Museum, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and Speed Art Museum have all acquired significant works from Bailey’s collection.
