ART
APPLIANCE SALE, FRIENDSHIPS
LED TO HIGHWAYMEN COLLECTION
BY CATHERINE ENNS GRIGAS
As Seen in
M
A G
A
Z
I
N
E
ED DRONDOSKI PHOTOS
One of the favorite subjects of the Highwaymen artists is the Royal Poinciana tree. This contemporary painting by one of the original Highwaymen, artist
James Gibson, shows a Royal Poinciana in full bloom shading an old cabin.
Businessman John Jetson says the paintings
also depict “a little bit of my soul’’
A
rt and appliances may make strange bedfellows, but when it comes to the ongoing story of
the Florida Highwaymen, selling paintings surrounded by washing machines and televisions
doesn’t seem that unusual.
The Jetson TV and Appliance Center flagship store on
U.S.1 in Fort Pierce has, in the past four years, become
66
a mecca for followers of Highwaymen art. Its annual
Highwaymen Show, along with other Highwaymenoriented events throughout the year, attracts not only
a majority of the artists, but thousands of followers
from all over the state who can purchase their paintings
or the books that have been written about their lives,
>>
watch them paint or talk to these living legends.
ART
How John Jetson, the outspoken owner of what is now a
local appliance and television empire, got involved with the
area African-American artists who sold their tropical landscape paintings door-to-door is one of those stories that seem
to be typical of buyers’ encounters with the artists in those
early days.
Starting in the 1960s, and influenced by Alfred Hair, a
young black man who had a natural gift as an artist and a
salesman, a number of area men ― and one woman ― began
making quickly painted landscapes that sold for $25 to $30.
At a time when they could make only a few dollars a day
working in the orange groves or tomato fields, they took the
opportunity to make a fast buck by painting rapidly, putting
out as many paintings as possible during the week and selling them on weekends, usually with the paint still wet.
They sold the paintings from their cars, looking for customers anywhere they could, going up and down U.S. 1 and
across the state to sell. The Jetson shop was a natural stopping place for all of the artists.
BUSINESS DEAL
One of the painters was Harold Newton, a talented artist
who had long given up work in the orange groves and had a
successful career with his paintings on display in local banks
and lawyers’ offices.
“That was back when leisure suits were cool,” recalls
Jetson, 66. “And I had a baby blue leisure suit that was goodlooking as hell. Harold had bought an air conditioner from
me and he owed me $200. He gave me $100 and left two
paintings. I went after him yelling, ‘You son of a b ― ’as he
drove down the road. He just waved at me.”
>>
John Jetson opened his store at 4145 S US Highway 1 in Fort Pierce in
1974. The business has expanded into Stuart and Vero Beach and has
outlasted 40 competitors.
67
ART
Sequined SentinelS MaSterpieceS of
Haitian art
John Jetson talks to customers in a photo circa 1975 soon after he opened
his appliance and television store.
Diabolo Bossou, Beaded Voodou Flag, Sequins and Beads Sewn on Satin, by Petit Frere Mogirus
Featuring Beaded Voodou Flags
from the Collection of Candice Russell
March 12 – May 1, 2015
Opening Reception
Friday, March 27, 2015
6 - 8 PM
Sidewalk Haitian Art Sale and Lecture
Saturday, March 28 11:00 a.m.
Free Admission
Haitian art expert and journalist, Candice Russell,
speaks about her collection
and the conundrum that is Haiti.
Purchase your own Haitian art treasure
at our sidewalk art sale.
All dates subject to change. Please visit the museum’s website for updates on schedule and events.
500 N. Indian River Drive | Historic Downtown Fort Pierce
772.465.0630 | www.backusmuseum.com
68
Newton sped off, and then Jetson looked down at the
paintings he was holding in his hands. Paint from the stillwet paintings coated his prized leisure suit.
Jetson admits that back then, he thought “I didn’t want his
paintings. I thought they were ugly.” But as time went by, he
began to amass a collection of paintings by the area artists,
saying “I got to enjoy them.”
“I was on their route,” he says. “Back then, you didn’t buy
them because they were cool. I was buying them because we
were trying to help someone.”
FAMILIAR LANDSCAPES
He says he relates to the familiar landscapes and places
in the paintings. “I’ve seen that,” he says as he points to a
painting of the backwoods. “I’ve been there. It’s a little bit
of my soul.”
Jetson came with his family from Lighthouse Point, Fla., to
Fort Pierce in the mid-1970s. He was an air commando and
served as a forward air controller with the U.S. Air Force in
Vietnam for 17 months from 1968-1970. He opened the appliance store with his brother, Scott, in 1974.
The store has expanded to seven locations from Vero to Stuart, has 135 employees and outlasted 40 competitors, including national chains. He calls Fort Pierce at that time “the Wild
West,” and owning those paintings that depict that unspoiled
scenery “makes me feel good,” he says.
Over time, Jetson’s art collection grew to include a total of
174 Highwaymen paintings. Initially, they were displayed in
the showroom, but then they were moved to the service department, replaced by some of the deep-sea fishing trophies
the avid fisherman and boater has caught over the years.
Susan Harris, who works for Jetson in client relations, was
already an avid Highwaymen collector and fan when she got
an idea that caught fire. Harris, who was born in Manhattan
and had just moved to Vero in the mid-1990s after years in
Japan with her pilot husband, happened to notice a number
of tropical landscape paintings at the office where she was
getting her resume together.
“This woman had so many paintings, including Harold
Newtons, the crème de la crème of the painters,” she says. >>
ART
“I was just enamored.”
Although early collectors had begun calling
the group of local artists
The Highwaymen,
she could still find
the paintings in flea
markets and yard sales.
She made friends with
many of the painters
long before they were
discovered and the
newspaper articles, documentaries and books
that brought them to
fame were released. The
Highwaymen were inducted into the Florida
This painting by Willie Daniels, another
Artists Hall of Fame
Highwayman from Fort Pierce, shows how
the artists often used the same subject matter.
in 2004.
LARGE COLLECTION
When word got out that Jetson had a large collection of the
paintings, Highwaymen devotees called to see the collection,
which were tucked behind closed doors and not open to the
general public. To give the public a place to view the paintings and since there was no local Highwaymen festival, Jetson and Harris held the first event at the Fort Pierce Jetson’s
location four years ago.
Johnny Daniels was a Fort Pierce Highwayman who was one of the
Harris gathered many of the living Highwaymen to attend
youngest of the 26 inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame. He bethe festival. The artists were given display space in the show- >> gan painting in his early teens, accompanied by his older brother, Willie.
FORT PIERCE
THE SUNRISE CITY
Florida
FACEBOOK.COM/FTPIERCE
|
WWW.CITYOFFORTPIERCE.COM
|
772.467.3000
69
ART
Mary Ann Carroll holds the distinction of being the only woman artist of
the Highwaymen. She was also one of the early artists, learning from Harold Newton. This Everglades scene shows her use of brilliant color.
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70
room and weren’t charged anything. “I feel it’s a community
service,” says Jetson, who hosted this year’s festival Feb. 28.
More than a thousand people showed up for the first festival, causing traffic jams. In the three subsequent years, the
event has grown and rekindled the enthusiasm for an amazing chapter in African-American history. They’ve also given
the artists a place to sell their paintings, since many still sell
out of their cars or on the roadside.
Also displayed at the festivals is Jetson’s own collection,
which includes a number of early paintings by artists who are
deceased, including Alfred Hair, Harold Newton, Hezekiah
Baker, Livingston “Castro” Roberts and, most special to Jetson, George Buckner. He has 26 paintings by Buckner, some
of which he commissioned.
“Buckner was the finest artist,” says Jetson. Once, while
Buckner was on his way to the Coconut Grove Art Festival,
Jetson told him he would save him the trip and offered to buy
all his paintings.
Jetson paid cash, causing Buckner to affectionately refer to
him as “Mr. Green.”
“We became very dear friends,” says Jetson. “I knew when
I met him. He was just one of those real people. A real gentleman. The finest man I ever knew.”
Once Jetson took Buckner to paint the Royal Poinciana tree
in his family’s front lawn on Indian River Drive. Buckner
stood in the midst of the branches for his painting, which
Jetson owns.
“He was always looking, observing,” says Jetson. “He told
me once, ‘I live in the clouds,’ meaning he feels them.”
Buckner’s landscape paintings are masterful, meticulous works. Sawgrass is depicted in his Everglades scenes
by carefully applied brushstrokes. The hyacinths in water >>
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scenes are purple dots so tiny and exacting that the French Pointillist artists would
have been amazed.
Jetson says Buckner’s precision impressed him so much he wondered if they
were photographs.
“He took me back to where he painted,”
he says. “He had paint brushes that looked
like eyelashes. I said, ‘Let me see you do
that,’ and he drew an egret. I didn’t want to
offend him, but I wanted to make sure.”
Sometimes, when the delicate, painstaking work of painting was too much, Buckner would start another work and then
go between the paintings. He continued
working with his lawn service, Buckner
Landscaping.
Jetson encouraged Buckner, even going
with him to the first Highwaymen Reunion
held in downtown Fort Pierce in 2001.
When Buckner died in 2002 of lung cancer
at the age of 58, Jetson attended his funeral
in Gifford. “It was really nice; they were all
singing, but I don’t do funerals anymore,”
says Jetson.
His own tribute to the Highwaymen is to
continue the festivals that allow the artists
to sell their paintings and to celebrate the
26 artists who truly represent one of the
most colorful of artistic enterprises.
Alfred Hair was the young artist who turned painting into an enterprise, making pictures as fast as
he could and sending out his friends to sell the paintings. He was killed in 1970 at Eddie’s Place,
a juke-joint place on Avenue D.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Besides writing for Indian River Magazine,
Catherine Enns Grigas is the author of The
Journey of the Highwaymen, a book tracing
the art movement from the early 1950s through
today. It includes 204 full-color plates of
Highwaymen paintings.
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ART
THIS HIGHWAYMAN’S LESS TRAVELED ROAD
George Buckner eschewed the mass production of paintings
BY CATHERINE ENNS GRIGAS
I
n many ways, George Buckner had none of the qualities
associated with the group of African-American artists now
called the Highwaymen.
For one thing, he didn’t paint fast. That was the characteristic
that Alfred Hair championed, reasoning that more paintings
meant more money. Buckner was a detail-oriented, methodical
painter who would take weeks to complete one painting.
For another, even before the Highwaymen were recognized,
Buckner was winning awards at the Coconut Grove Art Festival
and selling his paintings for a hundred times more than the $25
he charged in the early days.
Almost up to the time of his death of lung cancer in 2002 at
age 59, he continued his work in lawn service as the owner of
Buckner’s Landscaping, saying he liked to be outside. Many of
his customers were surprised to find out he was also an artist, a
nod to his gentle, understated disposition.
Buckner was the oldest of 12 children and grew up in Gifford.
He had to leave school in the sixth grade after his father died.
His brother, Ellis, met Harold Newton when the two were working picking oranges and George was inspired to try painting.
A group of Gifford men that included the Ellis brothers, Willie Reagan and Alphonse Moran started making paintings and
selling together around 1969.
Painting came naturally to Buckner, who was already an accomplished musician who played guitar, piano and saxophone.
His band even once opened for James Brown, Lucille Buckner,
his widow, now 72 and living in Gifford, remembers.
Lucille and George, who was tall and handsome, married
when she was just 18, a union that lasted 36 years.
“He started scratching around in the late 1960s,” she says of
his start as a painter. “His brother, Ellis, and some of the other
fellas would paint for a week and then go out on Friday to sell
them. After a time, it wasn’t enough for him. They just throwed
up something just to sell and he didn’t like that.”
He visited A.E. “Bean” Backus, the white landscape artist
who lived in Fort Pierce, and probably got some pointers from
him, using a blue underpaint like Backus did in his landscapes,
but it was “soft blue” that her husband used, she says.
“One day, he told me he really wanted to advance and really wanted to learn to paint. I said, ‘Just do it.’ He had a lot
of yards and condos that he did for his lawn service, and he
went down to two or three condos and a couple of yards, just
enough to support us.” Lucille worked as a cosmetologist and
hair stylist to make ends meet.
In the early days, he used the same Upson board material
that the other artists used and fashioned his own frames. But
later, when he sold at the gallery he and Ellis operated, or when
he showed his artwork in Miami, he used canvas and bought
his frames.
He was surprised when a lady came up to him and told
him that collectors liked the “old frames.” When he was at the
Coconut Grove Art Festival, he would often eavesdrop on what
visitors would say, says Susan Harris, who knew Buckner. For
one painting he had inserted a pig into the landscape, wondering if people liked pigs as well as cows.
Two women stood in front of the painting, praising it and
72
George Buckner of Gifford is considered one of the finest of the Highwaymen artist. This circa-1970s painting shows his early style before he became
a more detail-oriented landscape artist. It was painted on Upson board, the
wall board that many of the Highwaymen used instead of canvas. As Buckner began devoting himself more to his art, he began using canvas.
saying they would
buy it if it didn’t
have that ugly pig
in it. That was it for
pigs, says Harris.
Buckner also
did portraits, Lucille says, but that
didn’t always work
out, either.
“He did a
portrait of a man
and it looked just
like him, but the
man said it didn’t.
He charged the
man such a small
price for it that he
George Buckner, the eldest of 12 children, often
told my husband
worked with his brother, Ellis, who sold many of his
he couldn’t have
a cheap portrait of paintings. Ellis was also an artist in his own right.
himself hanging on the wall, so my husband charged him more
and he took it.”
Buckner was often watching the sky, observing the clouds for
future paintings. When Buckner met John Jetson, Jetson would
take him around to the Everglades and many times Buckner
painted the Royal Poinciana tree that grows on the Jetson family’s front lawn on Indian River Drive.
Buckner was a precise perfectionist when it came to his
paintings. “Sometimes, he would paint something and then
wipe all the paint off,” says Lucille.
“He would do one painting so far and he would want it to
dry so he would start on another,” she says. “It probably took
him two to three weeks to a month to finish a painting.”
Buckner enjoyed little of the fame associated with the Highwaymen. The first book on the subject was published in 2001,
one year before his death. He was inducted into the Florida
Artists Hall of Fame in 2004 and is considered among the finest
of the Highwaymen artists.