The Founders

Clip from upcoming PBS documentary, The Highwaymen, Legends of the Road. Coming to PBS in May 2008.

They were an unlikely group of black landscape painters that emerged from the American South in the 1950's and 60's. Segregation locked them out of selling their works in white owned art galleries. So, the artists took to the road to sell their paintings.

They formed a loose knit cooperative of artists and door to door salesmen and started mass producing decorative landscape paintings of Florida. The artists churned out the paintings in assembly line fashion and the salesmen packed them in their cars to sell to businesses and home owners all over the South. It is estimated that collectively the artists may have produced as many as 200,000 paintings and they sold every one.

In the 1970's and 80's the art had largely been forgotten and many paintings were sent to either the attic or the trash can. But, in 1994 a savvy art buyer re-discovered their art and labeled the group of black artists, "The Highwaymen". The title stuck, creating an art world identity that fueled their popularity and the value of their art.

The Highwaymen, Legends of the Road reveals the artists' inspiring journey and profiles the three remarkable men who initiated it. The one-hour feature documentary features exclusive interviews and never before seen images and paintings.

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