Melvin Way

1954 to 2024, USA

‏Melvin Way was born in Ruffin, South Carolina, and spent some time living with relatives in Brooklyn. While he was still a student in high school and at a technical school, he became interested in science, botany, chemistry and music. He played in bands. For a short time he worked as a mechanic. Then he developed symptoms of schizophrenia and wanted to become a musician. Eventually he became homeless on Wards Island and from the 1970s onwards he lived in and out of psychiatric institutions and homeless shelters in New York. In 1989 in the Keener Men’s Shelter on Wards Island he was discovered by the artist Andrew Castrucci who then encouraged him. Castrucci offered weekly “art classes”, but Melvin Way did not attend them. The two artists became friends and held long conversations, about books as well as art. Later they resumed contact at the Fort Washington Men’s Shelter.

Despite the challenges of day-to-day survival during his time in New York, Melvin Way created hundreds of artworks. He drew for several hours every day.

His dense, abstract drawings contain enigmatic geometric shapes, numbers, scripts and dots as well as mathematical and chemical formulas. Most of them are complex, small works drawn with ballpoint pen and ink on paper, often held together with transparent Scotch tape.

‏Works by this African American artist were included in the first Outsider Art Fair in New York in 1993. The Andrew Edlin Gallery organised some solo exhibitions of work by Melvin Way in New York.

The first solo exhibition in Europe, entitled “A Vortex Symphony”, was held by Christian Berst in 2016, at his gallery in Paris. In the accompanying catalogue, Andrew Castrucci describes how Melvin Way gradually allowed him access to his artworks with their secret formulas and messages. He always carried a lot of small drawings in the pockets of his raincoat, and reworked them repeatedly. He also kept more of his small drawings in a briefcase. In March 2018 Edward M. Gomez published an article in Hyperallergic, entitled “Melvin Way Holds the Keys to the Universe”, which was based on interviews with both the artist and Andrew Castrucci.

Today, works by Melvin Way are owned by museums such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the American Folk Art Museum in New York and the Collection de l'Art Brut in Lausanne. His work can also be found in numerous private collections, such as the Treger Saint Silvestre Collection in Portugal, and Bruno Decharme’s Collection abcd in France. As of 2021, Melvin Way has also been represented in the 921 works of the “Donation d’Art Brut de Bruno Decharme” at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

 

Selected works