Alfred Hair

Alfred Hair was the cofounder of the Florida Highwaymen group alongside Harold Newton, and was the visionary for the groups painting and sales methods. He was born in 1941 in Ft Pierce, FL. As a young adult he met A.E. Backus who was an already established artist. Backus gave him lessons in landscape painting and inspired Alfred Hair to be a full time artist and salesman. Hair eventually teamed up with Harold Newton and formed the Florida Highwaymen, prioritizing fast painting as a tactic to produce as many paintings as possible in a short period of time so that they can go door to door or on the side of the highways and sell many paintings for cheaper rather than less paintings for a higher price. This strategy was invented as a way to sell art without the help of Art Galleries because during the current time period segregation laws in Florida would not allow African American artists to be sold in traditional Art Galleries. Alfred Hair was shot and killed in an argument at a bar on August 9th, 1970 at the age of 29 but his legacy lived on as the other 25 Highwaymen continued to paint and sell as taught by Hair. He was inducted in the Florida Artists hall of fame in 2004 a long with the other Highwaymen he mentored.