This truth is that if it hadn't been for Paul Edlin (1931 - 2008), this gallery never would have existed.
When I first saw his postage stamp art in 1996 at Gordon College in Massachusetts I was deeply moved by the shimmering effect the room full of mosaic collages had on me. At the age of 65, it was Uncle Paul's first solo show. I knew he'd been making art for years but I didn't realize that for the last 15 years he had been almost exclusively using stamps to compose his paintings.
Moved by his talent, I brought some of his work around SoHo where I was told that it was "outsider art," which I had never heard of. I was fortunate to find Aarne Anton at American Primitive Gallery who immediately responded to the work and began to show it regularly. Sales and press ensued and it was a life-changing experience for Paul.
Born in 1931 with a profound hearing loss, Paul Edlin never found a steady career path but had always been interested in art. Finally, in 1972 at the age of 41, he enrolled in art classes over a period of about ten years at the Art Students League and New School, where he was mentored by renowned American artists Will Barnet and Henry Pearson.
In the early 1980s Edlin began incorporating postage stamps into his artworks and by the 90s was using them exclusively, choosing them from those of many nations for colors and visual texture. He sliced them into tiny pieces, which he used like mosaic tiles, gluing them on museum board until his compositions were finalized. His scenes of people and mythological figures, animals and objects suggest a mystical personal cosmology. His 16 x 20 inch collages could take as long as three months to complete, and he worked diligently every day, alone in his one-room New York apartment.
Edlin always led an isolated life, exacerbated by his deafness and the death of his mother during childbirth, but returned more to the family fold (cousins, nephews and brother) after I began to manage his art career. He was diagnosed with cancer in 1999 and passed away in 2008 at the age of 77. In addition to this gallery and American Primitive, his work has been shown at the American Visionary Art Museum (Baltimore), the Collection de l'Art Brut (Lausanne) and Colgate University's Longyear Museum, where his last solo exhibition took place in 2007.
- Andrew Edlin
Born 1931, New York, NY
Died 2008, New York, NY
EDUCATION
1972-1984
Art Students League, New York, NY [intermittently]
New School for Social Research, New York, NY [intermittently]
1965
B.S., Printing Management, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY
1955
Springfield College, Springfield, MA
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2014
Paul Edlin: Family Business, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, NY
2007
Dreaming in Fragments: the Stamp Collages of Paul Edlin, Longyear Museum, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY
2004
Paul Edlin: Selected Works, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, NY
2002
Paul Edlin: A Retrospective, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, NY
2001
Postage Stamp Pictures, American Primitive Gallery, New York, NY
1998
Postage Stamp Pictures, American Primitive Gallery, New York, NY
1996
Collages: New England Debut for a New York Artist, Homer Mezzanine Gallery, Gordon College, Wenham, MA
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021
Figure Out: Abstraction in Self-Taught Art, Outsider Art Fair New York, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, NY
2009
In Through the Out Door, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, NY
2007
Witness, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, NY
25th Art Brussels Contemporary Art Fair, Andrew Edlin Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
2006
5 Year Anniversary Group Show, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, NY
Outsider Art Fair, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, NY
2005
Holy H2O, American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, MD
2003
Booth 529, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, NY
2002
W,X,Y,Z of Outsider Art, Edlin Fine Art, New York, NY
2001
Bits and Pieces: Mosaic Makers, Edlin Fine Art, New York, NY
Compelled, Hunterdon Museum of Art, Clinton, NJ
Remembrance and Ritual, Makor Gallery, New York, NY
Outsider Art Fair, American Primitive Gallery, New York, NY
2000
Toronto International Art Fair, Andrew Edlin Gallery, Toronto, Canada
Treasures of the Soul: Who Is Rich?, American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, MD
New Acquisitions, Collection de l'Art Brut, Lausanne, Switzerland
Art Miami, Andrew Edlin Gallery, Miami, FL
1998
Love: Error and Eros, American Visionary Arts Museum, Baltimore, MD
Outsider Art Fair, American Primitive Gallery, New York, NY
1997
Methods and Materials, Arlene Bujese Gallery, East Hampton, NY
Global Outsider Art, Judy Saslow Gallery, Chicago, IL
Birds, American Primitive Gallery, New York, NY
Outsider Art Fair, American Primitive Gallery, New York, NY
1996
Miniature Obsessions, American Primitive Gallery, New York, NY
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
1999
Dawson, D.T., The New Mosaics, Asheville: Lark Books.
1996
Collages: New England Debut for a New York Artist [exhibition catalogue], Manchester-by-the-Sea: Cricket Press.
SELECTED ARTICLES
2014
Shilling, Alana, "Strange Intimacies," Brooklyn Rail, March 4.
2002
Karlins, N.F., "Paul Edlin," Artnet Magazine, September 27.
2001
McBee, Richard, "Today's Jewish Folk Artists: Remembrance and Ritual -Jewish Folk Artists of Our time: Makor Gallery," American Guild of Judaic Art, April 3.
1999
Cotter, Holland, "Art In Review," New York Times, November 26.
1998
Silver, Sara, "Finding Art in all the Hidden Places: Society's 'Outsiders' Create World of Art and Beauty," Associated Press, Cleveland, September 28.
1997
Cotter, Holland, "Art In Review: Little Things Mean A Lot, Miniature Obsessions," New York Times, January 10.
1996
"Obsessions," The Villager, December 18.
AWARDS & HONORS
1995
Richard Florsheim Art Fund, Grant
1994
Jerome Foundation, New York Initiative, Grant
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Collection de l'Art Brut, Lausanne, Switzerland
Musée de la Communication, Bern, Switzerland
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT