Mixed media on paper, signed, a bold and gestural composition with a dancing frog frolicking with a purple fish beneath a red sky, matted and framed under glass.

Frame dimensions 29 3/4 x 35 1/2 in.

From the Estate of the late Dr. Everette James, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

From The University of Mississippi Museum:
Luster Willis was born in Hinds County, Mississippi, and then moved to Copiah County where he spent the majority of his life. Willis worked as a barber, farmer, woodcutter, and spent three years in Europe during World War II. During the Depression, Willis began carving walking canes for a source of income. Willis had a stroke and spent the last decade of his life paralyzed in a wheelchair. He was never scared of death, and once remarked, “We all going to die. I like to show it coming.”

Willis began drawing and painting his imaginative thoughts at a very young age. He sketched and carved humorous drawings of classmates and objects around him. Often, Willis would begin drawing or painting abstractly until it evoked a memory, and then he would develop that memory further.

Minor pulling to mat board; not examined out of the frame.