The Highwaymen Collector

This website includes up-to-date Highwaymen news, a growing library of in-depth blogs and original research on the Highwaymen artists, valuable art pricing guidelines and pricing trends, conservation issues and services related to Highwaymen paintings, as well as a high quality group of paintings always for sale.

All of the information on this website is openly available at no charge.  However, some information (individual artist pricing guides, and historical blogs) do require a free website registration. This registration may be completed on either the blog or pricing pages.  Once registered, all information on this website is always provided at no charge.

The Highwaymen Collector website focuses primarily on the 26 Highwaymen artists, as defined by the Florida Artists Hall of Fame (“FHOF”) in 2004.

 

The Last Great Art Movement of the 20th Century

In the l960s, a group of young, Black Americans barely out of high school, taught themselves to paint as a way to earn a decent living and escape the underpaid labor in the citrus groves and packinghouses of the segregated, Jim Crow South. With no money for proper supplies, they painted using left-over construction material called Upson board, house paint and frames made from pieces of floor molding and scrap wood. To have enough paintings to sell, they painted quickly, creating a distinctive, colorful style that captured the stormy clouds, windy waves, quiet marshes and deserted beaches of a still undeveloped Florida.

Traveling up and down Central Florida’s highways, they hawked their paintings from the backs of cars for around $20 to $40 each. They sold to roadside motels, banks, doctor’s offices and tourists, producing over 200,000 pieces. Because of their “outsider” status, they never received the recognition and respect from the arts community they deserved, but always yearned to be called “artists.”

Their long journey to cultural respect began in the early 1990s when a curator and art journalist discovered their work in flea markets, antique shops and garage sales. Upon learning how their art was originally produced and sold, he named them “The Highwaymen.”

The Highwaymen initially painted to escape poverty, and today their art adorns the walls of respected museums, governor mansions…and even the White House. Collectors now pay in excess of $50,000 for these cherished works. After the ravages and fortune of friendships, jealousy, murder, hope and triumph, The Highwaymen have become an integral part of art history.

Of the 26 Highwaymen artists, nine are considered “original” (or the earliest) Highwaymen:

The additional 17 Highwaymen artists include: