Zebedee Armstrong

Zebedee B. Armstrong (October 11, 1911–1993), aka Z.B. Armstrong, was an outsider artist best known for his doomsday calendars.

Armstrong was born in Thomson, Georgia. He went to school until eighth grade. He married in 1929 and had two daughters. For much of his life, he worked picking cotton on the local Mack McCormick farm. After his wife died in 1969, he began to work at the Thomson Box Factory, staying there until 1982.

Art

In 1972, he claimed to be visited by an angel who warned him that the end of world was coming soon. Armstrong went on to construct almost 1,500 box calendars with the aim of trying to determine the exact date of the approaching doomsday. Many of the calendars are made of wood with clocks and dials, painted white and over-layered with grids or with text denoting the box's purpose.

References

• "Zebedee Armstrong Jr.," Chuck and Jan Rosenak, Museum of American Folk Art Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century American Folk Art and Artists (New York: Abbeville Press), pp. 39-40.
• Outsider Art Sourcebook, ed. John Maizels, Raw Vision, Watford, 2009, p.4.

Further reading

• Raw Vision, Louanne LaRoche, Issue 59, 2007, pp.38-41
• Zebedee Armstrong, christian berst art brut