William Blayney (1918 - 1986): Paintings of a self ordained Pentecostal minister who preached from his Winnebago in the parking lots of Pennsylvania malls.

posted April 2017 bt 5T1V

William A. Blayney was born in Western Pennsylvania at Claysville on December 21, 1918. He had a natural talent for drawing at a grade school and drew cartoon-like

figures and sayings on bomber planes while serving in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. Honorably discharged in 1945, Blayney drove heavy equipment

vehicles and ran an auto body and engine repair shop.

Blayney became increasingly interested in studying the Bible and attended Bible meetings conducted by local TV evangelist Kathryn Kuhlman. Blayney suddenly

started to paint in 1957, at the same time that he became immersed in the Bible. He felt he had a mission to preach, he began to paint the intense religious works

which express his concern with the decline of morals in the world. His paintings express the redemptive power of God as revealed by the Hebrew prophet Daniel

while held captive in Babylon in the Old Testament and of the Holy Trinity in the New Testament's book of Revelations. He was ordained in 1969 in the Pentecostal

Ministry by the laying on of hands. When Blayney died in 1985.

William Blayney's art is now in the collection of The Smiothsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, The American Folk Art Museum in New York, and

The Museum of Everything, London UK.

All images courtesy of Stephen Romano Gallery, New York