TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – A man who brought the work of Alabama folk artists to the attention and acclaim of the world, and fostered an unknown collection of paintings by a hometown artist into a highly respected art museum, has died.

Fayette businessman and civic leader Gorman Jackson “Jack” Black, 78, died of complications of pneumonia at University of Alabama Medical Center Tuesday, Aug. 31.

Family members will receive friends at the Black beloved Fayette Civic Center and Art Museum, 530 North Temple Avenue, Thursday from 6-8 p.m. Graveside services will be held at Heritage Memorial Gardens, U.S. Highway 43 North in Fayette, at 11 a.m., Friday, Sept. 3.

Black is best known for recognizing the talent of Alabama self-taught artists, particularly that of retired Fayette yardman Jimmy Lee Sudduth who paints with colored Alabama clay on plywood and other found objects. Sudduth’s highly original images of animals, people, and hometown scenes evoke in subject and materials the essence of rural Southern life. His works are now held in the Smithsonian and in other major art collections and have been shown in major exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe.

“Jimmy Lee Sudduth is a major traditional artist in America,” said Lee Kogan, director of the Folk Art Institute of the American Museum of Folk Art in New York. “He is in all our encyclopedias and is in the most important collections in this country. Long before people recognized the importance of traditional art, Jack Black did.

“His interest and commitment to self-taught artists has been of immense importance in our field. As an advocate for Alabama artists in particular, he was the first – or one of the first – to recognize the strength and power of now nationally respected artists, Jimmy Lee Sudduth, Mose Tolliver, Sybil Gibson, Benjamin Franklin Perkins and Fred Webster, among them,” said Kogan.

Black was founding station manager of WWWF radio station in Fayette from 1949 to 1986 and founding editor and publisher of the weekly Fayette Country Broadcaster newspaper from 1962 to 1982.

In the early 1960s Black learned of the desire of Fayette native and New York artist Lois Wilson to donate all of her work, nearly 2,000 pieces, to the city. She was an eccentric and eclectic painter whose work was largely unknown, but it possessed the unique characteristics of the self-taught or traditional folk artist: simplicity, subjectivity, sincerity and originality.

“Jack had a terrific eye for art and a deep understanding and appreciation for traditional or folk art,” said Gail Trechsel, director of the Birmingham Museum of Art.

Black convinced the Fayette City Council to convert the City Hall auditorium into a gallery for Wilson’s work and spearheaded a community effort to establish the Fayette Art Museum, which opened in 1969. Black volunteered as the museum’s director and curator and began exhibiting and collecting the work of area self-taught artists. He continued to serve in those capacities as well as chairman of the board of directors until his death.

“Forming the Fayette Museum was a significant contribution. He has given the community of Fayette and all Alabamians a greater appreciation of Alabama artists. And his work has brought to Fayette people from around the country who are particularly interested in folk art,” Trechsel said.

Black worked to gain a wider audience for the artists whose work spoke volumes about the largely rural life they depicted.

“He was so generous about sharing information and getting the word out about the artists he admired. He was enthusiastic and tireless. The reputation and public understanding of the work of many of Alabama’s traditional artists would not have been as widely known today had Jack not taken the interest,” said Georgine Clarke, visual arts program manager for the Alabama State Council for the Arts and a long-time director of the Kentuck Art Center in Northport.

In 1992, the growing collection was moved to the Fayette Civic Center and Art Museum. The Fayette Arts Festival, also founded by Black, has been underway for 35 years.

In 1984, expressing his desire to see the artists represented in the Fayette Art Museum’s collection gain their deserved, widespread recognition, Black wrote to then Fayette mayor Guthrie Smith, “I will admit that much of this planning and speculation could just be called hoping and dreaming, but after seeing Lois Wilson’s dream of a museum come to pass, I thought we should keep the tradition alive and keep dreaming…Someday someone will find the right St. Peter who will let this little project through the gate to the big-time art world.”

Perhaps Fayette’s St. Peter was Black himself. Black’s work on behalf of folk artists has been acknowledged by “Folk Art” magazine, “Southern Living,” and in numerous published anthologies of traditional artists work.

Black was also recognized in 1991 by The University of Alabama’s Society for the Fine Arts in the College of Arts and Sciences with its Patron of the Arts Award and in 1980 by the University’s School of Communication with its Outstanding Alumnus for Broadcasting. He was also recognized by the city of Fayette in 1969 as Fayette’s Man of the Year, by the Alabama Senior Citizen’s Hall of Fame in 1994, and by the Fayette Chamber of Commerce in 1997 as Member of the Year.

Black’s community involvement was extensive. He served as a member of the Northwest Alabama Mental Health Association, as charter chairman of the Fayette Civic Center Board, and as a member and chairman of the Society for the Fine Arts in the College of Arts and Sciences at The University of Alabama. He was past president of the Fayette Chamber of Commerce, Fayette Exchange Club, Fayette County Historical Society, and the Fayette Arts Council.

Born in Cordova, he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in broadcasting from The University of Alabama in 1949 after serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II in the Pacific Theatre.

He is survived by his wife Margaret Alexander Black, of Fayette; daughter Claire Black Wilson and grandson Alexander Black Wilson, both of Tuscaloosa; and sister Hilda Black Brown and her husband Rex Brown, of Cordova.