The Highwaymen

The Highwaymen, also referred to as the Florida Highwaymen, are a group of 26 African American landscape artists in Florida. Two of the original artists, Harold Newton, and Alfred Hair, received training from Alfred “Beanie” Backus. It is believed they may have created a body of work of over 200,000 paintings. They challenged many racial and cultural barriers. Mostly from the Fort Pierce area, they painted landscapes and made a living selling them door-to-door to businesses and individuals throughout Florida from the mid-1950s through the 1980s. They also sold their work from the trunks of their cars along the eastern coastal roads (A1A and US 1). The Highwaymen created large numbers of relatively inexpensive landscape paintings using construction materials rather than traditional art supplies. As no galleries would accept their work, they sold them in towns and cities and along roadsides throughout Florida, often still wet, out of the trunks of their cars. Their success and longevity is remarkable considering they began their career in the racially unsettled and violent times of the 50s in Florida and amid the social conditions of the Jim Crow South where the stirrings of the civil rights movement were only just beginning. They have been called "The Last Great American Art Movement of the 20th century". History In 1955, 19-year-old African American artist Harold Newton was convinced by A. E. Backus, a prominent Florida landscape artist, to create paintings of landscapes rather than religious scenes. Newton sold his landscapes from the trunk of his car because art galleries in South Florida refused to represent African Americans. The following year, 14-year-old Alfred Hair began taking formal art lessons from Backus and, after three years, also began selling landscape paintings. Newton and Hair inspired a loose-knit group of African American artists to follow their leads. Newton is recognized by fellow artists for his technical inspiration while Hair is the considered the leader and catalyst "who set the tone for the group through the 1960s." They attracted a group of a "young, energetic" artists who painted large quantities of brilliantly colorful impressionistic landscapes that they each sold from their cars. In 1970, the group lost its charismatic leader when Hair was killed in a barroom brawl at age 29 and the prodigious output of the movement's artists began to wane.