Velox Ward, Sr. was a self-taught memory painter. In 1960, Ward
began painting at age 59 at the request of his family. Like many
other great Folk artists, Ward turned to his memories of growing up
in rural East Texas during the early part of the twentieth century.
He is known youthful recollections of his community, including
outdoor scenes of ginning cotton, tending a garden, butchering
meat, and napping on the porch.
Unlike most other memory painters,
he refused to rely on the idealized nostalgia of days gone by and
strove to infuse his work with as much realism as possible.
In some ways Velox Ward is Texas's answer to Grandma Moses. He began his first painting at the age of sixty in order to make a gift for his grand-daughter. Within several years Ward was recognized as a major creative contributor to the genre of 'folk art' or 'primitivism'. Today such major institutions as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, and the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, include examples of Ward's art in their permanent collections.
