New Menil Drawing Institute exhibit explores travel, tall tales
Fanciful work of the late artist Joseph E. Yoakum captures images from around the world — mostly in ballpoint, fountain or felt-tip pen
E. Yoakum is proof that it’s never too late to try something new.
The late artist began drawing landscapes at age 71. He had no formal training. By the time of his death in 1972, he’d drawn more than 2,000 works — mostly in ballpoint, fountain or felttip pen.
Now through August, “Joseph E. Yoakum: What I Saw” at the Menil Collection’s Menil Drawing Institute showcases 86 of his drawings. Curator Edouard Kopp combed through hundreds of Yoakum’s works, including some from private collections, with colleagues at the Art Institute of Chicago and Museum of Modern Art to organize the exhibition. It’s the first major museum retrospective in more than 25 years.
Kopp says “What I Saw” shows Yoakum’s range. His raw talent and travels are on full display.
“The idea was to show someone who didn’t know anything about Yoakum a good idea of who he was,” Kopp explains.
Yoakum was a man of many monikers. He’s been described as an “artist’s artist” and a creator of “naive art.” The latter is defined by the Tate Modern as art that is simple, unaffected, unsophisticated.
There’s no question that Yoakum was untrained. His foray into art was more of a divine calling.
Following a medical incident, Yoakum was inspired by a dream to pick up the pen. As a deeply spiritual Christian Scientist, there’s speculation he felt a need to give back after surviving his health scare. So for 10 years, he drew nearly every day.
Yoakum was born in Missouri during the Jim Crow era. He’s of dual heritage: African American and Native American. It’s been suggested that he was “culturally adrift.” This might explain why, as a young boy, he ran away and joined the circus for several years. Kopp says that Yoakum at one point worked as a valet for John Ringling of Ringling Bros. fame.
Yoakum also served in
France during World War I. Today, we might say he had wanderlust. Those early, formative experiences led Yoakum to later claim he’d visited all the continents except Antarctica, which he drew nonetheless.
There’s no way to know for sure. He was also a man of tall tales. His landscapes aren’t exactly accurate and neither are his elaborate inscriptions handwritten in cursive. But they are charming. Kopp says Yoakum had a playful sense of humor.
“If you take a few steps back from most of his drawings you can see a face,” Kopp shares. “Once you see them they’re hard to unsee.”
Legend has it that whenever Yoakum’s admirers asked if the faces in his work were intentional, he never gave a straight answer.
He was also a gifted colorist. His use of color — usually pastel pencils and the occasional watercolor — revealed dazzling and otherworldly shapes, though it always came second.
In Yoakum land, lines are the main attraction.
Kopp suspects Yoakum was a lonely man. He drew roughly 200 works annually, though no one on record ever saw him at work. His drawings are exJoseph tremely labor-intensive — there are no uncovered areas on his sheets.
There are very few humans either. He preferred unspoiled patches of country. “Landscapes are really what excites him,” Kopp says.
One gallery in “What I Saw” is dedicated to various modes of transportation. Trains, boats and UFOs are all depicted.
Sometimes nature is angry, as in “Crater Head Mtns of Honolula Hawaiia” (stamped Nov. 24, 1969) or “A Cyclone in Action at Iola Kansas in Year of 1920” (1969). Mostly, Earth is shown showing off. Some of Yoakum’s most recognizable works are of sunsets — “Mt Baykal of Yablonvy Mtn Range near Ulan-Ude near Lake Baykal of Lower Siberia Russia E Asia” (1969) and “Waianae Mtn Range Entrance to Pearl Harbor and Honolulu Oahu of Hawaiian Islands” (1968) — rainbows, “Mt Atzmon on Border of Lebanon and Palestine SE.A.,”
(1968).
A glass case containing a quartet of sketchbooks is worth a long look.
The late artist has certainly experienced a resurgence in popularity. Fashion designer Lemaire created a special capsule collection of Yoakum’s prints for spring/summer 2022. T-shirt dresses and men’s shirts currently retail for nearly
$2,000 at Nordstrom and Bergdorf Goodman.
A trip to the Menil Drawing Institute is free, though the desire to wear a Yoakum landscape is understandable.
Kopp says his goal for “What I Saw” is to make Yoakum’s work even more recognizable. He was appreciated in his time and fairly well-known considering his short, albeit meteoric 10-year career. Fans often gathered at his storefront studio on Chicago’s South Side.
“He didn’t have shows, per se, but he certainly made it,” Kopp says. “After this exhibition he’ll be more well-known. As he should be.”