Mose Tolliver

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Mose Tolliver, whose self-portraits and vivid images of nature, people and animals in humble house paint made him one of the leaders of the "outsider art" movement, has died. He was in his 80s.

The self-taught folk artist, who signed his work Mose T, died Monday of pneumonia at Baptist Medical Center East after years of declining health, family members said.

Various dates have been given for his birth, with 1920 listed by some collectors and galleries.

Tolliver began painting in the 1960s after being severely injured while working in a furniture factory. He was said to have first gained notice when he hung his paintings on trees in his front yard and sold them for a few dollars to passers-by.

Anton Haardt, author of "Mose T from A to Z: The Folk Art of Mose Tolliver," was an early admirer and began buying his work and reselling it, getting it noticed by dealers.

His self-portraits over the years conveyed a range of emotions, she said, from the early years when he painted himself with a pipe to the later years when he included a crutch. Some could be "grotesque."

Mose T's paintings can sell for thousands of dollars today and are in museum collections, including the Museum of American Folk Art in New York, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Smithsonian Institution and the New Orleans Museum of Art.
Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press