Abraham Lincoln Walker (1921–1993) was a visionary artist from East St. Louis, Illinois, who worked in near solitude for decades while running his house-painting business. Though largely unknown during his lifetime, he produced hundreds of works—rediscovered in 2024—that have since been recognized as a major body of art. At Art Basel Paris, his seldom seen works on paper from the 1980s are presented alongside oil on board paintings from the same decade.
Walker first turned to art in the 1960s, creating before and after long workdays. He was inspired by jazz musicians including Miles Davis, a fellow East St. Louis native. His methods were inventive and resourceful: using putty knives, brushes, newspaper, and plastic wrappers to apply paint, he fashioned surfaces that appeared abstract from afar but revealed faces, figures, and landscapes up close. Techniques such as decalcomania and frottage allowed him to draw imagery out of chance textures, blending improvisation with a deep sense of spiritual vision.
By the 1980s, Walker’s works had become increasingly abstract and phantasmagorical. The compositions on view, created between 1983 and 1992, chart Walker’s movement from figuration into cosmic explorations of faith, memory, and transcendence.