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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEFebruary 20, 2015 (updated 4/3/15)

MR. EDDY LIVES! New exhibit at AVAM will feature Florida outsider artist’s vibrant, colorful paintings

April 11, 2015 – April 2016

BALTIMORE, MD—The American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) presents Mr. Eddy Lives!, featuring 109 paintings and portraits by the late Florida outsider artist Eddy Mumma (aka Mr. Eddy), a recluse and double amputee whose solace and delight was in the production of explosively joyful paintings. The largest and most comprehensive exhibition of Mr. Eddy’s work to date, this voluminous yearlong show opens April 11, 2015 in the 3rd floor gallery of AVAM’s Zanvyl A. Krieger Main Building.

Eddy Gallimore Mumma was born July 14, 1908 in Milton, Ohio to devoted Christian Scientist parents. Tall and powerfully built, Eddy marries Thelma Louise Huebner in 1936, settling near Springfield, Ohio. Two years later their only child is born, a daughter they name Carroll Lee Mumma. The young Mumma family purchases a modest farm and then a larger one, sharing the property with Thelma’s mother, Stella, and a few renters for extra income. In 1956, Eddy loses his wife to breast cancer. She is only 44 years old, and Eddy drinks heavily to ease his sadness. He moves to Gainesville, Florida in 1967 to be near his daughter and her family. Diabetes costs Eddy the loss of one leg, and eventually the other. Cataracts lead him to the brink of blindness, but eye surgery greatly restores his sight.

In early 1969, Carroll suggests that Eddy, now 60, try a painting class. He does, gets insulted by criticism from the instructor on the first day, and walks out never to return. He takes home the paints and is hooked. Eddy’s painting begins filling more and more of his tiny home, spilling over to cover even the surfaces of his radiator, kitchen cabinets, stove, and refrigerator. His son-in-law and two grandchildren bring art supplies and ask that he use both sides of the canvases, because he runs through them so quickly. Art professor, bohemian musician, and big-hearted force of nature, Lennie Kesl, becomes Eddy’s close friend and ardent admirer at a time when Eddy is increasingly reclusive, self-conscious about losing his legs, and uninterested in interrupting his private inner world filled with art production. Kesl also brings art supplies to Eddy, who is adamant he has no interest in any public showing or commercial sale of his art. Lennie is convinced Mumma is a true genius and shares a few paintings Eddy gifted him with Josh Feldstein, his close friend. Feldstein is immediately smitten.

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At Mr. Eddy’s death in 1986, Feldstein happens to pass by Mr. Eddy’s home as the family is clearing out years of clutter. He acquires a great trove of paintings directly from Mr. Eddy’s family. Many canvases are stuck together, some are insect encrusted, and Feldstein takes on the long task of their loving conservation. Feldstein observes, “Mr. Eddy created a wonderful world for himself that I have been lucky enough to experience while living with these paintings for the past 30 years. The images are simple but evocative, expressively colorful and playful, yet full of emotion.” In January of 2015, The Historic Thomas Center Galleries of Gainesville, Florida showcased a sensational solo exhibition of Eddy Mumma’s work, curated by Anne Gilroy, in tribute to this reclusive Gainesville treasure.

Rebecca A. Hoffberger, AVAM founder and curator of Mr. Eddy Lives! remarks: “Standing in front of Mr. Eddy’s work and imagining him wholly engulfed in such radiantly happy colors and thick, luxuriant paint—momentarily knowing nothing of lost limbs, hellish Florida heat, or loneliness—we are reminded what restorative, soul-saving, powers art has the grace to grant us all. Perhaps cartoonist and philosopher, Lynda Barry, put it best: ‘We don’t create a fantasy world to escape reality, we create it to be able to stay.’ ”

April 11, 2015 – April 2016 • 3rd floor gallery, Zanvyl A. Krieger Main Building

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MR. EDDY LIVES! Special Members Opening Reception

Sunday, April 12, 2015 • 5pm–8pm • lite fare & beveragesRSVP required by April 9 to Melissa Mauro:melissa@avam.org, 410.244.1900 x238

AVAM Fan Club Members: join us for the opening of AVAM’s all new 3rd floor exhibit: Mr. Eddy Lives!, featuring 109 paintings and portraits by the late Florida outsider artist Eddy Mumma (aka Mr. Eddy), a recluse and double amputee whose solace and delight was in the production of explosively joyful paintings. Enjoy lite fare and beverages, mix and mingle with other Fan Club Members, and hear a special talk with curator/AVAM founder, Rebecca Hoffberger, and Eddy Mumma expert/collector, Josh Feldstein, about this truly one-of-a-kind visionary artist, Mr. Eddy.

PRESS RELEASE: Mr. Eddy Lives! exhibition at AVAM 2 of 4

Eddy MummaUntitledn.d.Collection of Josh FeldsteinPhoto by Charlotte Kesl

PRESS RELEASE: Mr. Eddy Lives! exhibition at AVAM 3 of 4

Eddy MummaUntitledn.d.Collection of Josh FeldsteinPhoto by Charlotte Kesl

PRESS RELEASE: Mr. Eddy Lives! exhibition at AVAM 4 of 4

ABOUT AVAM:AMERICAN VISIONARY ART MUSEUM (AVAM) is America’s official, national museum and education center for self-taught, intuitive artistry. Since its opening in 1995, the museum has sought to promote the recognition of intuitive, self-reliant, creative contribution as both an important historic and essential living piece of treasured human legacy, and has championed creative acts of social justice as life’s highest performance art. The one-of-a-kind American Visionary Art Museum is located on a 1.1 acre wonderland campus at 800 Key Highway, Baltimore Inner Harbor. Three renovated, historic, industrial buildings house wonders created by farmers, housewives, mechanics, retired folk, the disabled, the homeless, as well as the occasional neurosurgeon—all inspired by the fire within. From carved roots to embroidered rags, tattoos to toothpicks, the visionary transforms dreams, loss, hopes, and ideals into powerful works of art.

VISITOR INFORMATION:AVAM is open Tuesday through Sunday, 10am—6pm. The museum is closed on Mondays*, Christmas Day and Thanksgiving Day. AVAM is located next to historic Federal Hill park at 800 Key Highway, Baltimore Inner Harbor, 21230. Admission prices, general museum info, directions, and parking info can be found online at avam.org or by calling 410-244-1900. *OPEN Monday, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day with FREE admission & special programming—AVAM’s celebration of Dr. King’s vision and all of life’s possibilities!

CURRENT EXHIBITIONS:The Visionary Experience: Saint Francis to Finster • thru August 30, 2015American Visionary Art Museum’s 20th original exhibition champions life’s grand “Aha!” and “Eureka!” moments, held in common by Earth’s most dynamic and intuitive “evolutionaries:” inventors, scientists, America’s founding fathers, dreamers and saints; each touched by some lightening bolt of greater understanding, insight, grace and muse. Co-curated by acclaimed filmmaker and book publisher Jodi Wille (The Source Family, 2012), and AVAM founder and director Rebecca Alban Hoffberger, this exhibition’s highlights include: a spirited centennial celebration of America’s most prolific self-tutored and “on fire” artist, Rev. Howard Finster; the giant otherworldly paintings of remote viewer Ingo Swann; a rare peek into the spiritual life of famed musician Jimi Hendrix; the cosmic works of polymath Walter Russell; the religious experience of sci-fi icon Philip K. Dick as drawn by Robert Crumb; an exploration of inventive new spiritual groups and their leaders: Uriel of Unarius Academy of Science, and Father Yod and The Source Family; the wildly expansive drawings and bronze wind-bells for future ecology-based cities of Italian architect Paolo Soleri; and many more! The Visionary Experience will guide viewers down a path ancient and modern, futuristic and primitive, where the touch of grace, the whisper of the muse, and the still small voice beckon, offering the traveler transportive visions: personal, cultural, and cosmic.MORE: http://avam.org/exhibitions/the-visionary-experience.shtml

MEDIA CONTACT:Nick Prevas: nick@avam.org, 410.244.1900 ext. 241

PRESS IMAGES: Download at http://avammedia.zenfolio.com/pressimagesemail nick@avam.org for password

PROGRAMS & EVENTS CALENDAR: For a complete list of AVAM’s Programs & Events, please visit: http://avam.org/news-and-events/calendar.shtml.

AMERICAN VISIONARY ART MUSEUM800 Key Highway • Baltimore, MD 21230 • 410.244.1900 • avam.org

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