CHELO AMEZCUA
Artist Malcolm McKesson died in New York City on February 5 of complications from a stroke he experienced in December 1998. McKesson was born into a well-to-do family, but his perception of family life, punctuated by the premature deaths of an older brother and an older sister, was colored by sad memories. He graduated from Harvard University in 1933,served as an M.P. with the Army Air Corps during World War II, and in 1942 married a poet, Madeline Mason, who was also from a socially prominent family. He was employed, with little success, at a variety of jobs until the 1960s, when his wife became responsible for his support. During the ensuing years until her death in 1990, he devoted his time to art-making and to his marriage; his work was discovered in 1994.
McKesson made thousands of drawings and approximately 100 paintings. There are more than 2,000 drawings in his Matriarchy series—intricate, gestural pen-and-ink drawings of shadowy,fleshy figures—for which he is best known. He also completed a self-revealing, illustrated, fictionalized autobiography based on these works entitled Matriarchy: Freedom in Bondage (New York: Heck Editions, 1997). Representing an inner struggle to understand himself, the book explored themes of transvestitism, bondage, and love. McKesson is survived by a nephew,John McKesson,and a niece, Ann Stein. —Lee Kogan
Itesy Robert Manley
Malcolm McKesson 1909-1999
Dwight Mackintosh 1906-1999 Dwight Mackintosh died on March 27 of natural causes. He was recognized for his complex line drawings of people, vehicles, animals, and buildings—usually punctuated by highly personalized cryptic text—executed in pencil, felt-tip marker,chalk, and tempera paint. Few biographical details of the artist exist. He was born in Hayward, Calif., where he lived with his parents and younger brother, Earl, until the age of 16, when he was institutionalized for mental retardation. After 56 years at variparticipant for more than 20 years. ous facilities, he was released in The artist's work has been exhib1978 as part of a widespread ited throughout the United States national trend toward the deinstiand in Europe. tutionalization of the mentally ill. —Lee Kogan Shortly thereafter, Mackintosh's art-making began to flourish at the Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, Calif., where he was a
Musa Alada, 1967, 32x20", ink on paper
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FALL 1999 FOLK ART 23