Jimmy Lee Sudduth, the Fayette artist who placed Alabama in the folk art spotlight in the 1970s and'80s, died Sunday at Fayette Medical Center. He was 97.

Mr. Sudduth was best known for his mud paintings of buildings, animals, places he visited, and his dog, Toto. A prolific artist, his works have been exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery and the Smithsonian Institution's Festival of American Folklife, both in Washington, and at the Birmingham and New Orleans museums of art and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. In 2005, Mr. Sudduth received a Governor's Arts Award from the state of Alabama.

"His gentle nature and solid production of artwork over many years called for this kind of singling out," said Georgine Clarke, visual arts program manager for the Alabama State Council on the Arts.

Inventive early on: Born at Caines Ridge, near Fayette, on March 10, 1910, he began painting in mud when he was young.

"I got started when I was a little boy, I'd say about 5 or 6 years old," Mr. Sudduth said in a 2001 interview with The Birmingham News. "I learned my own self how to paint."

He painted on corrugated metal, particle board, lumber and other found materials. For pigment and texture, he often mixed mud with coffee grounds, charcoal and pine needles to suit his needs. His work came to prominence before the folk art explosion of the 1980s.

Joey Brackner, director of the Alabama Center for Traditional Culture, related his first meeting with Mr. Sudduth in 1984.

"He once worked at a sugar press and noticed that when the sugar fell on the ground, it would harden, and when you pick it up, it would be the color of the dirt," Brackner said. "By mixing different colored soils with sugar, he could get paint."

That inventiveness, coupled with his honesty, are qualities that made Mr. Sudduth unique, Clarke said.

"He captured the life that he knew - the rural life, the architecture, the people he knew, the people he saw on TV and his dog, Toto, in many forms," she says. "The textures made for interesting and good art. The formal values - the line and shape - are very solid."

More important, Clarke believes, are the human values he brought to his work. "The folk art field now is much more complicated by people who are trying to define themselves," she said. "He never tried to define himself. People looked up to him for his honesty. He was loved as a person."

Although Mr. Sudduth's art work fetches high prices, he was never driven by the marketplace.

"Nationally, people collect his work," Clarke said. "The resale and auction value of his work has remained consistent or risen, which is another indication of his importance."

Clarke credits Sudduth for much of the success of the Kentuck Festival of the Arts in Northport, which she founded 36 years ago.

"As people became aware of the importance of self-taught artists, his consistent presence through all those years was so significant to the festival," Clarke said. "Alabama is known for artists who are characterized as self-taught. He is one of that genre."

Mr. Sudduth was also well known as a blues harmonica player. "My fondest memory was in 1984, when I drove to Fayette to pick him up for a school program," Brackner said. "He played the harmonica all the way to Tuscaloosa. He was a delightful man."

MICHAEL HUEBNER - News staff writer

Title: Musician

Image Size: 24" X 24" - Mud and Paint on Board

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