Lot 658: Dwight MacIntosh Painting, Outsider Artist

California, 20th century. Dwight MacIntosh (1906-1999), painting titled "Roadster", appears to be dated 1980s lower right, marker and acrylic paint on paper. Float mounted and matted in black wood frame; 26 x 32 in.

Dwight Mackintosh was born in Hayward, California in 1906, his birth simultaneous with the Great San Francisco Earthquake - it is said that his disability stemmed from that traumatic coincidence. Mackintosh was institutionalized at age 16. There he remained for 56 years until the mass release of patients, 1978. He was introduced to Creative Growth in Oakland, California, where he contentedly worked on his drawings with great focus and concentration. Works include see-through (x-ray) vehicles, animals, and a few women. Favorites were early model cars and high-buttoned boots of a previous era. Unintelligible writing was often an element of Mackintosh's drawings, but it was separate from the primary image - like layers of unraveled yarn floating overhead. His sequences of connected letters moved from left to right as if they were continuous explanatory text, or perhaps one vast sentence.