SHUT UP: Joe Massey’s Messages from Prison

Born in Ohio in 1895, Massey was an African-American self-taught artist who created a compelling oeuvre during his incarceration at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus. As an inmate, the artist engaged in a years-long correspondence with Charles Henri Ford, the editor of the pioneering surrealist art publication View, which resulted in the eventual inclusion of Massey’s art and poetry in issues of the magazine between 1943 and 1946.