**Originally Listed At $300**

Myrtice West (American, 1923-2010). Biblical bird house. Painted wood, ca. 2000-2010. Signed on verso and underside of base. A sanctuary for birds and a sermon in miniature, this hand-painted birdhouse by Myrtice West transforms a humble object into a vessel of visionary devotion. Likely created between 2000 and 2010 - after the devastating fire that destroyed West's home - this piece stands as a small but stirring emblem of spiritual restoration. The artist, who lost her house and most of her paintings in that fire, inscribed the back of this wooden birdhouse with a heartfelt plea: "God this house." It is the only phrase on the object not drawn from Scripture, and it resonates with quiet urgency - a prayer for protection, a blessing in the shape of paint and wood. As was her custom, West filled the surfaces with passages from the King James Bible, here primarily focused on birds and divine intervention. Size: 8.6" L x 7" W x 9.5" H (21.8 cm x 17.8 cm x 24.1 cm)

Along the right side, a pair of bright yellow songbirds perch on a painted branch, while nearby Isaiah 31:5 appears: "As birds flying so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem - deliver it he will - preserve it." The imagery of small birds - fragile, vulnerable, yet watched over - mirrors the theme of divine protection that runs throughout the piece. Overhead, soaring across the right roof panel, two brown eagles sweep through a blue sky as West transcribes Ezekiel 17:3 and 17:7: "God said a great eagle came unto Lebanon / there was another great eagle," a vision of power and divine judgment.

The left roof panel hosts a haunting trio of owls - one mid-flight, one nesting, one standing - accompanying Isaiah 34:14-15: "The screech owl also shal [sic] rest there - great owl make her nest - lay and hatch." The left wall features a grassy green landscape below Isaiah 34:16: "Seek ye out of the book - Holy Bible of the Lord and read. No one of these shall fail." On the front facade, two children in bright primary colors - a boy in overalls and a girl in bonnet and dress - stand beneath Isaiah 30:1: "Woe to the rebellion children," their innocence cast against the severity of divine warning. The angel painted on the back, wings outstretched, turns the whole birdhouse into a vessel of intercession, protection, and presence.

Beneath the house, West includes her signature and post-fire Centre, Alabama address: "P.O. Box 544." She even scrawls her phone number in pencil on the bottom panel - a marker of the personal, rural immediacy that defines her work. Made of salvaged materials and painted with folk simplicity and spiritual urgency, the birdhouse carries the same visionary spirit found in her large-scale biblical cycles. Though small, it holds the full weight of West's apocalyptic imagination: owls and eagles, children and angels, all bound together in a sacred story where birds soar, God watches, and no soul is too small to shelter.

Myrtice West painted not for fame, nor gallery walls, but to survive. Born Myrtice Snead on September 14, 1923, in Cherokee County, Alabama, she came of age on a cotton farm in the foothills of the Appalachians. Her family was poor and deeply religious, a denominational patchwork of Baptists and Methodists. She left school in the eighth grade and married Wallace West in her teens. By the early 1950s, having suffered two miscarriages and a bout of cancer, she found herself lying on the floor, sketching Christ in chalk - an act she later called the beginning of her calling. "It was like the hand of God directing me," she said. It would not be the last time she felt her brush moved by unseen force.

In 1956, after seventeen years of waiting, she gave birth to a daughter, Martha Jane, whom she described as a miracle - a gift from God. But the joy of that answered prayer would one day be tested by fire. After Martha Jane entered an abusive marriage, West turned to painting in desperation. One night in 1978, in the solitude of her kitchen, she claimed she was moved by a divine directive to paint the Book of Revelation. Working in secrecy and silence, often before dawn, she spent the next seven years creating thirteen monumental paintings filled with angels, monsters, elders, trumpets, and thrones. These works - rendered on canvas, cloth, window screens, even reverse sides of plywood - became known as the Revelations Series and are among the most powerful examples of American visionary art.

West's approach to Scripture was literal, emotional, and intensely visual. She drew upon the King James Bible, her nightly readings, and dreams she could not forget. Her work has been compared to Grandma Moses for its folk aesthetic, and to Hieronymus Bosch for its cosmic drama. She layered oil and acrylic in thin washes, building her apocalyptic visions on found materials. As in medieval manuscript painting, she included hand-written verses beside figures - angels sounding trumpets, beasts rising from seas, saints in white robes - guiding viewers through the scenes with biblical text. Her Revelation paintings were never meant to illustrate doctrine, but to save souls. "If it saved just one," she said, "it would be worth it."

In 1986, the unthinkable happened: Martha Jane was murdered by her ex-husband. West, devastated but resolute, took in her grandchildren and continued to paint. Through mourning and motherhood, she completed new series based on the books of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Zechariah, each infused with deep symbolism and moral vision. She considered her paintings to be visual sermons, channels for divine message. They were not only expressions of grief but assertions of belief - spiritual declarations made with a brush. "I was as surprised as my husband when the sun came up and we seen what I painted all night," she once said of her first Revelations canvas. "Unless Christ comes in, I can't explain how I did these pictures or why."

West's art was deeply personal but gained public attention in the 1990s, beginning with inclusion in the 1991 Outsider Artists of Alabama exhibition sponsored by the Alabama State Council on the Arts. In 1993, she sold the original Revelations Series to collector and publisher Rollin Riggs, who promised to keep the works together and help bring her story to light. That promise culminated in the 1999 publication of Wonders to Behold: The Visionary Art of Myrtice West, a book featuring essays by over a dozen scholars, theologians, and artists. The paintings were exhibited at the University of Memphis and the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, placing her work in the company of Howard Finster, Sister Gertrude Morgan, and other giants of religious folk art.

But tragedy would find her again. In 2000, the antebellum home where she lived and worked burned to the ground, destroying all but a few of her remaining paintings. She relocated to an apartment in Centre, Alabama, where she continued to paint alongside her granddaughter and great-grandchild. Despite these hardships - and the cancer that would eventually claim her - she remained deeply committed to her calling. In her final years, she still painted biblical scenes and angels, decorating her porch with wooden cutouts that spun in the wind, which she jokingly called her "fallen angels."

West's paintings remain deeply rooted in the world that formed her: a place of cotton fields, creek baptisms, and Sunday sermons. But her art transcends its setting, resonating with universal themes of suffering, hope, justice, and grace. She channeled the fire and brimstone of her grief into compositions that blaze with meaning. In her work, Revelation was not just prophecy - it was autobiography, catharsis, and testimony. Her paintings are both cry and prayer, warning and comfort, apocalypse and assurance.

Myrtice West died on April 12, 2010, in Centre, Alabama. Her papers are preserved in the Smithsonian's Art and Artist Files. Today, her legacy endures not only in museums and books, but in the souls of those who find, in her paintings, the possibility of light through darkness - and the sacred power of a hand guided by faith.

Provenance: private Rochester, Minnesota, USA collection, acquired from 1990 -1998

All items legal to buy/sell under U.S. Statute covering cultural patrimony Code 2600, CHAPTER 14, and are guaranteed to be as described or your money back.

A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids.

We ship worldwide and handle all shipping in-house for your convenience.

SHIPPING EXCEPTIONS: Due to customs clearance issues, we are unable to ship to Germany, Switzerland and Australia. If you live in Germany, Switzerland or Australia, you will need to provide an alternate shipping destination, or we will not be able to complete your purchase. In addition, please note that we are unable to ship ancient items back to the original country of origin (Egyptian to Egypt, Greek to Greece, etc.)

PAYMENT EXCEPTION: Unless a known customer of Artemis, payment for all gold / precious metal / gem lots must be made via Bank Wire Transfer or Certified Bank Check/Money Order, no exceptions.

#192945