Joseph E. Yoakum

Joseph E. Yoakum (1891–1972) was an American self-taught artist known for his highly distinctive landscape drawings depicting mountains, valleys, rivers, and geological formations from around the world, many of which he claimed to have visited during a life of extensive travel. Working primarily in ballpoint pen, felt-tip marker, and colored pencil on paper, his compositions feature rhythmic, undulating lines that give his landscapes an otherworldly, visionary quality. Discovered by the Chicago art community in the late 1960s, Yoakum is celebrated as a major figure in outsider and visionary art, and his work influenced a generation of Chicago Imagist artists.