Painter. He received international notoriety as a 20th Century American artist, who painted colorful nature scenes such as the Florida backwoods, sandy beaches or a raging ocean. He captured on canvas many Seminole villages. He was a self-taught artist that was independent, eccentric and did not ale his paintings at first. He left his Maine home at the age of thirteen and may have finished the eighth grade. Prior to moving to St. Augustine, Florida in 1949, he had attempted and failed at being a chicken farmer, a salesman, a river boat pilot, and a husband. He opened an art gallery and curio shop called the “The Over-Fork Gallery” on St. George Street in the Ancient City. His paintings show his unique view of the world reflecting his naive, yet frank, style of happiness in bright colors such as lime green, hot pink, and vivid yellow. His pieces have been labeled as “American Primitive Fauve.” He often painted from memory and as a believer of recycling, he used paints from yard sales. In 1961 he sent his painting, “The Everglades” to United States First Lady Jackie Kennedy, and he was pleased that this painting could be seen in the background during TV interviews with President Kennedy. The painting is now on display at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1970 his art pieces were beginning to be widely recognized with the support of art collectors Michael and Marilyn Mennello of Winter Park, Florida. They campaigned for his talent and collected as many of his paintings as could be found. Their support soon caused his paintings to gain recognition, and he had thirty one-man shows across the nation. The first was at the Orlando Art Museum in 1970, which was followed two years later with one at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Daytona Beach. In 1987, a show was held at the Jacksonville Art Museum entitled “Earl Cunningham: His Carefree American World.” In 1995 another show entitled “Earl Cunningham and Grandma Moses: Visions of America” was held at the Galerie St. Etienne in Manhattan, New York. During his lifetime, he completed 450 paintings, but despite the support of Jacqueline Kennedy and the Mennello couple, his paintings did not make a museum display while he was living. Twenty years after his death in 1998, the City of Orlando opened the Mennello Museum of American Folk Art, which displays an extensive collection of his paintings. Today, his paintings are part of a permanent collection of 10 major museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C., and the Abbey Aldrich Rockefeller Museum in Williamsburg, Virginia. In 2007 he became the first folk artist to have a one-man exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. He was inducted in the Florida Artist Hall of Fame in 2003. His story is told in Robert Carleton Hobb's book, “Earl Cunningham: Painting an American Eden.” Leaving no will, the cause of Cunningham's death was suicide.