Joseph Elmer Yoakum (1890–1972), of Cherokee, African-American, and French-American ancestry, started drawing late in life and produced some two thousand works on paper, primarily landscapes and select portraits, over just ten years. In 2022, a major retrospective of over 100 of Yoakum’s works on paper at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, illuminated the artist’s imaginative vision of the landscapes he visited, and deep exploration of his spirituality and complex biography. The artist claimed that the locations in his works were based on memories of his time spent in various circuses as a youth, his service as a soldier with the U.S. Army during World War I in Europe, his time as a vagabond rail rider, and his experiences as a stowaway and stevedore in Asia and Australia. Yoakum translated these memories are into scenes of swelling landforms, serpentine empty roads, and evergreen foliage. The Whitney Museum of American Art staged a solo exhibition dedicated to Yoakum’s work in 1972. Most recently, he has had a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; a solo exhibition at Venus Over Manhattan, New York, NY; and has been featured in group exhibitions at the National Gallery, Washington, D.C.; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. His drawings are in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago; The Menil Collection, Houston, TX; Milwaukee Museum of Art; Museum of American Folk Art, New York, NY; and the Philadelphia Museum Art among others.