Graham Shay 1857
Outsider Art Fair 2020

Graham Shay 1857 represents works from the estate of the recluse artist Robert Kippur (1944 - 2015). He grew up in the Mid-West and moved to San Francisco to escape his troubled youth. After being rejected from art school, he worked as a San Francisco municipal bus driver. He then moved to New York City to isolate himself from all those he knew. He was a secluded hermit with no formal training who painted his dreams and fears compulsively on advice of his therapist, filling his apartment and storage space with dozens of paintings.

Kippur was included in two exhibitions, one at Exit Art in 1985 and the C & A Gallery in SoHo in 1992. He rarely showed his paintings, preferring to keep them close to himself. He died alone in his apartment in 2015, surrounded by stacks and stacks of his artworks. With no heirs in New York , the contents of the apartment were sold by the New York City Public Administrator.