Cowan's Corner

Andrew Clemens ­ "Painter Without a Brush"
Creativity and a Little Sand Equals Great Folk Art

By Wes Cowan and Andrew Richmond

One of the hottest categories of antiques on today's market is folk art. Though very broadly defined, the term "folk art" generally refers to individual creations by untrained or self-taught artists. From naïve 19th-century paintings to whimsical sculptures from the late 20th century, good folk art has an inherent charm that, in recent years, has driven prices skyward.

For many collectors, central to their appreciation of folk art are the stories of the folk artists. Such is the case with Andrew Clemens, who during his short life, created remarkably complex pieces simply by filling glass bottles with colorful sand.

Clemens was born in Dubuque, Iowa, in 1857, and at the tender age of five, he lost his abilities to speak and hear as a result of encephalitis. After a brief stint at the Iowa Institute for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb in Council Bluffs, Clemens began experimenting with sand art, collecting the naturally occurring, multicolored sands from the Pictured Rocks region of Iowa. He fashioned special tools that he used to arrange the sand in intricate designs and then pack it tightly (he used no glue of any kind). Sizes and designs varied, and orders came to Clemens from around the world, each customer paying about five to seven dollars.

As his skill and creativity developed, his subjects ranged from boats and ships, to flowers, to flags and eagles, and he frequently created custom sand bottles depicting a scene of his customer's choosing and including his or her name in a variety of fonts. Larger, more complex bottles took as much as a year to complete.

Throughout his career, the window in front of his worktable was a popular place for McGregor residents to pass the time, watching the meticulous artist create his sand bottles. In his later years, he became so absorbed in his work, he lost interest in nearly everything else, and the long hours hunched over his table began to take their toll. Clemens, dubbed "the portrait painter without a brush or even paint," died in 1894, only 37 years old. He is thought to have produced hundreds of bottles during his lifetime, but relatively few survive today.

The imagination, complexity, and rarity of Andrew Clemens' sand bottles have made them extremely popular on today's market, generally fetching thousands of dollars each. But to many collectors, these bottles are priceless, because they are tangible reminders of the tragic, isolated life of a very gifted folk artist.

Cowan's Auctions, Inc. in Cincinnati, OH (www.cowanauctions.com) specializes in the sale of Historic Americana, European and American Furniture, Decorative Arts and American Indian Arts. An internationally recognized expert in historic Americana, Wes Cowan stars in the PBS television series History Detectives and is a featured appraiser on Antiques Roadshow. Andrew Richmond heads Cowan's Furniture and Decorative Arts department. They can be reached via email at info@historicamericana.com.

The pair of sweetheart sand bottles Clemens made for Henry Reinken and his future wife Helen Wimmler, estimated at $25,000-35,000.

This 7.75" footed sand bottle features the owner's name on one side and a three-masted ship on the other. It sold for $12,075 in May 2004.

The label used by Clemens on his sand creations.