Charles Keeling Lassiter Abstract Figural Pen Ink Watercolor M/M Painting 86.

(can read more about him below)

This is an original 1986 mixed media with ink & watercolor on paper artwork signed "Lassiter '86" in the upper left. The piece features a distinct, heavily textured, abstract composition created using layered imagery and bold expressive contours on paper by American artist Charles Keeling Lassiter (1926–2005), created in 1986. Known for his powerful affinities with Outsider Art, Art Brut, and Abstract Expressionism, Lassiter has rendered a dynamic composition featuring bold ink contours, biomorphic forms, and striking accents of blue and brown tones. This piece is presented unframed in fair condition with damages, making it an exceptional acquisition for collectors of contemporary expressionist and visionary art.

Medium: Original - Mixed Media & ink & watercolor on paper

Unframed, Unmatted, Untitled by Artist

Signature: Signed Lassiter (Acquired from the estate of Charles Keeling Lassiter)

Dated: 1986

Approx. Measurements: 14"h by 21"

Condition: painting in fair condition with missing corner & multiple small tears on the edges.

Status: Vintage

Short Artist Biography 

Charles Keeling Lassiter born in New York in 1926. He was a trained artist who is

also considered an outsider because of his style and medium chosen. He work has often described as raw and primitive, the effect is bold and powerful

He has participated in numerous exhibitions in various Galleries and Museums in the United States, Switzerland and France, Including the Museum of Modern Art in 1956 and the Musée de L'Art Brut in 1986. Despite a reclusive lifestyle that limited his broad commercial exhibition during his lifetime, his distinct works on paper, mixed media and paintings have been collected by major institutions, including the  the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, Yale University, and the Carnegie Museum of Art.

USA Continental Can Company -- First National bank of Chicago, New York -- Channel 13, NYC serigraphs, New York -- Manhattan Cable TV - Film 35 mm b & w Mylar improvisation, New York -- Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven -- Carnegie Institute-Modern Art Gallery, Pittsburg, Pa. -- Brooklyn Museum, New York -- Wittenborn Books Art, New York -- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York -- Finch College Collection, New.York -- Museum of Modern Art, New York

Mexico Mexican North American Institute of Cultural Relations, Mexico City

Europe Collection de l'Art Brut, Département Neuve Invention, Lausanne (Suisse) -- Musée cantonal des beaux-arts, Lausanne (Suisse) -- Kunsthaus, Zurich (Suisse) -- Musée d'art et d'histoire, Genève (Suisse)

Background & Style: Though formally trained, Lassiter is frequently associated with outsider art due to his unique, raw, and primitive aesthetic choices. Working actively during the era of Abstract Expressionism, he largely rejected mainstream trends like Minimalism and Pop Art, favoring expressive, surreal figurative works, intricate line drawings, and organic motifs that share spiritual and stylistic affinities with artists like Paul Klee and Jean Dubuffet.