Alfred Hair

Alfred Warner Hair (1941-1971), also Freddy Hair, was an American painter from Fort Pierce, Florida who, along with Harold Newton, was instrumental in founding the Florida Highwaymen artist movement. Hair was the leader of a loose-knit group of prolific African American painters who sold their vibrantly colorful landscapes from the trunks of cars along the eastern coastal roads of South Florida. In 2004, Hair was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame. Early life Alfred Warner Hair was born 20 May 1941 in Fort Pierce, Florida, one of seven children of Samuel and Annie Mae Hair. Hair graduated from Lincoln Park Academy in 1961, and attended one year at community college before dropping out to pursue his career as an artist. Career Hair's artistic talent had been noticed by his high school art teacher Zanobia Jefferson and she introduced him to the prominent Florida landscape artist, A. E. Backus. Backus had been encouraging several young African American artists and persuading them to paint landscapes rather than religious motifs. In 1956, when Hair was 14 years old, he began taking painting lessons from Backus. After three years, Hair set out on his own to earn a living as an artist. Because of Jim Crow era racism, art galleries in Florida would not represent African American artists, forcing Hair to find other m ethods of selling his artwork. Following the example of Backus' former student Harold Newton, Hair peddled his landscape paintings door-to-door from the trunk of his car. Hair and Newton inspired a loose-knit group of 26 African American artists to follow their leads. While Newton is recognized by fellow artists for his technical inspiration, Hair is considered the leader and catalyst "who set the tone for the group through the 1960s." He gathered a group of a "young, energetic" artists who painted large quantities of brilliantly colorful impressionistic landscapes.