Sam Doyle: What I Paint is History

WHAT I PAINT IS HISTORY is the first solo UK exhibition dedicated to the life and work of African-American visual documentarian, Sam Doyle (1906 - 1985). About Born into the tightly knit community of St Helena Island, a former plantation in South Carolina, Doyle was a self-taught painter steeped in the myths, traditions and language of Gullah: a culture born from the descendants of enslaved people from Angola. The front yard of Doyle’s homestead was his platform. His bold housepaint renderings, on corrugated roofing tin, sheet metal and found lumber, were layered across the frontage to form the self titled St Helena Outdoor Art Gallery . Today Doyle is widely regarded as a central figure in 20th century African-American art. His pieces are held in major institutional collections, such as the High Museum (Atlanta), LACMA (Los Angeles), PMA (Philadelphia) and MFA (Houston), Smithsonian (Washington DC) and American Folk Art Museum (NY).