The Florida Highwaymen: an Artistic, and Perhaps Hereditary, Tradition
On August 9, 1970, outside Eddie’s Place — one of the few dive bars in Ft. Pierce, FL — Alfred Hair, 29, took a bullet that had not been intended for him. He died before the ambulance arrived.
Hair was the first and founding member of the Florida Highwaymen, and the only one to receive any formal training. The Highwaymen were a loosely-associated group of African American men, and one woman, who painted Florida landscapes in and around Ft. Pierce. They sold their paintings on the A1A — hence the moniker — for around 25 dollars apiece.
Because no local museum would exhibit African American art at the time, they sold the paintings themselves — their biggest clients were hotels and banks, which bought dozens of paintings at time, long before prints could be made cheaply and an original painting had to hang in every room.
Most of the Highwaymen started painting because their only alternative was brutally difficult agricultural work.
For those who haven’t been to Fort Pierce, Florida, there’s not much to see — lots of orange groves. The county courthouse and the luxury apartments which line the pristine beaches are the only structures that poke up above the dense mangroves. In the mid-1950s — when the Highwaymen started painting — there was even less.
Today, Kelvin Hair, the son of Alfred Hair, is one of a handful of second-generation highwaymen. In some ways, Kelvin Hair is very much like the Highwaymen before him — his is a phenomenally talented landscape painter, he still lives in Fort Pierce, and he has a shrewd mind for the business of painting. However, the Highwaymen don’t sell their work from the backs of their trucks on the A1A anymore — Kelvin has his own studio, where he displays his own work and the work of other highwaymen.
I had the pleasure of meeting Kelvin Hair at the St. Lucie county fire station, right across from the Naval Museum, not half a mile from the beach in any direction.
According to Kelvin, his talent and passion for painting has a genetic component. To some extent, he has seen it in his own kids, though he says that they never showed the same childhood desire to draw which he led him to paint on every wall of his childhood bedroom. His mother, who works in his studio, remembers those drawings vividly — she laughed when she remembered a playboy bunny which Kelvin painted in high school.
When Alfred Hair and the other Highwaymen sold their paintings on the A1A, they fetched about $25 apiece. Today, you can walk in to Kelvin Hair’s studio, at 300 S A1A, and buy one of his paintings, but I’m afraid it’s going to cost you quite a bit more.
In the words of William Faulkner — echoed by every writing professor I’ve ever had — you must “kill your darlings” in order to refine and perfect your craft. Kelvin Hair has done just that — though he can recall in detail every painting he has ever done, he has not kept any. As one would expect of an artist, Hair has hung a painting on nearly wall in his home — including many Highwaymen paintings — but not one of his own.
The term Highwaymen was coined by an art historian — though it’s difficult to say who said it first — in the mid-1990s. Since then, a great deal of research has been done, and they have become the most famous group of artists in Florida’s history. The style of the Highwaymen has been preserved by the Second Generation for two reasons — partly in order to honor their predecessors, and partly because Florida landscapes in the famous style have continued to sell very well. “When you have a style that works for you — that sells — its best to stick to it,” Hair said. “Sometimes I paint other things, but I always know that a Highwaymen painting will sell.”
One of the most Scheherazadian aspects of the story of the Highwaymen and of Kelvin Hair has to do with Florida citrus growers — most of the original Highwaymen, Alfred Hair included, started painting as a means to escape one of the only other jobs available to African Americans at the time — picking citrus, among other crops. Today, Kelvin Hair is an artistic spokesperson for a big part of Florida’s citrus industry. After winning an award — presented by Governor Rick Scott — for a detailed painting of an orange blossom, Hair caught the attention of Florida citrus growers. Hair now speaks at some of their conferences and helps to raise awareness about the industry’s perilous existence — the last decade has seen a blight known as “greening” decimate Floridian orange production.
A.E. Backus, whose museum can also be found in Ft. Pierce, played a crucial role in the founding of the Highwaymen. He was a white Florida Landscape painter — one of the most celebrated in Florida — who showed a young Alfred Hair the ropes. This was the only formal training Alfred ever received; he shared this knowledge with several of his contemporaries and many more painters copied the technique from his work itself. Kelvin Hair met Backus before he passed away, and showed him some paintings.
Sometimes, at certain shows, Kelvin paints for an audience, demonstrating the flair — the economy of his brush strokes and bold colors — which made the Highwaymen famous. He likes talking to people, making those individual connections, and explaining his work to anyone who’s willing to ask.
