Scottie Wilson

Scottie Wilson (28 February 1891 – 1972), born Louis Freeman (birth certificate says Lewis), was a Scottish, Jewish,[1] outsider artist known particularly for his highly detailed style.

Starting his artistic career at the age of 44, his work was admired and collected by the likes of Jean Dubuffet and Pablo Picasso and is generally accepted to be in the forefront of 20th-century outsider art.

In his own words: I’m listening to classical music one day – Mendelssohn – when all of a sudden I dipped the bulldog pen into a bottle of ink and started drawing – doodling I suppose you’d call it – on the cardboard tabletop.

[4]It was there that he began his work, embodying a personal code of morality wherein characters called "evils and greedies" are juxtaposed with naturalistic symbols of goodness and truth.

While Wilson did not want to part with his drawings, he found the idea of an artistic career preferable to shopkeeping and attempted to solve the problem of raising money by staging travelling shows for viewing only and charging modest entrance fees or holding tray collections.

After receiving recognition for his work in Toronto, he abruptly went to London in 1945 and continued to exhibit his drawings for modest fees while maintaining a deep distrust of dealers.

Though he always complained of poverty, Wilson was discovered at the time of his death to have secreted a suitcase full of money under his bed and large sums in various bank accounts.

He stuck mainly to a narrow range of visual elements: botanical forms, birds and animals, clowns (self-portraits), and "Greedies" and "Evils" (malignant personifications).