Uncle Jack Dey

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Vocation

American self-taught artist who lived and worked primarily in Virginia. Before he began painting, he worked as a trapper, fisherman, lumberjack, barber, and police officer. Dey was a favorite among the neighborhood children, whose toys and bicycles he fixed, and they affectionately nicknamed him "Uncle Jack". In 1973, the American Folk Art Company in Richmond, Virginia, held Dey's first public paintings exhibition and more widespread recognition came in the next year when folk art collector Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr., included an image of Adam and Even Leave Eden in his book, Twentieth-Century American Folk Art and Artist. Several of Dey's works, including Adam and Eve Leave Eden, The Elephant Who Was Fond of the Watermelon, and Acupuncture Pitchfork Style, are included in the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Dey died of cardiopulmonary arrest on 10 October 1978, aged 65, in Richmond, Virginia. Link to Wikipedia biography