Malcah Zeldis

b. 1931 · New York, USA

She put painting away for more than twenty years to raise a family. When she picked it up again the colour came out roaring, and folk art’s front door finally opened to a living woman.

The life

Born Mildred Brightman in the Bronx in 1931 and raised in Detroit, Zeldis fell for the bright, busy Flemish paintings at the Detroit Institute of Arts. At eighteen she moved to a kibbutz in Israel, where the artist Aaron Giladi praised her early efforts, but marriage, children and a move back to New York put painting aside for over two decades. She returned to it seriously in the 1970s as her marriage ended, found validation in Haitian folk art, and in 1988 became the first living artist given a one-person show at the Museum of American Folk Art. With her daughter Yona she has illustrated children’s books on Anne Frank and other heroes.

The work

Flat, blazing compositions in oil and gouache, packed with crisply defined figures: biblical scenes, presidents, celebrities and city life jostling together in explosive oranges, blues, greens and pinks, with everyday objects given equal billing. After 1986 she often painted on corrugated cardboard for health reasons. Her work is held by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the American Folk Art Museum and the Jewish Museum in New York.

Why we love them

A whole first act given to other people, then a second act entirely her own. Late starts are still starts, and hers rewrote the rules.

Go deeper

• Malcah Zeldis at the Outsider Art Fair
• Malcah Zeldis on Wikipedia
• Smithsonian American Art Museum
• Where to see outsider art, our full list of museums and collections.
• The glossary, if any of the terms here are new.

Kindred spirits

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