62 new york | july 22–august 4, 2019
Not Looking for
the End of the World
By JERRY SALTZ“joseph elmer yoakum” is at Venus Over
Manhattan through July 26.a trove of over 60 exquisitely beautiful, quasi-abstract col-
ored-pencil landscapes by Joseph Yoakum are emitting undu-
lant optical auroras on Madison Avenue right now. Yoakum was
born in Missouri in 1890 to a former-slave mother and a Native
American father. At age 10, he began working with Ringling
Brothers, Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show, and other rail-
road circuses as a horse handler and billposter. He served in
France during the First World War and, over his life, worked as
a miner, carpenter, shoeshine, janitor, and mechanic, as well as