Clyde Broadway (1944—) is a fine artist known for narratives celebrating the American South and its "myths, realities, and dreams".
Broadway earned his MFA from Georgia State University in 1980. Prior to that, he earned a BFA at Auburn. He grew up in Alabama and has spent much of his career living in Atlanta. Broadway began making art as a child, inspired by the works of Milton Caniff, Lee Falk and Harold Gray. Since then he has come to draw inspiration from sources high and low: advertising, poetry, folk music, current events, as well as other artists.
Broadway cites visual artists such as Howard Finster, Picasso, Paul Klee, Red Grooms, Robert Colescott, Romare Bearden, Jasper Johns and the Book of Kells as influences. He claims to have met Picasso in a dream once.
Broadway's subject matter and general narrative intent align him to "outsider artists" like Howard Finster and Theora Hamblett but his formal art education excludes him from their ranks. In an interview I found, Broadway mentioned being more influenced by the early abstract expressionists of New York whlie in college but changed his approach after a friend introduced him to Finster.
In 1994 he completed his best known work, Trinity. This painting is a heavenly pairing of Jesus Christ with Robert E. Lee and a young Elvis Presley. The overall image is very tasteful and done in a style reminiscent of religous iconography (each figure has a halo). Jesus is shown as a white man in his glorified body; Robert E. Lee has kindly removed his hat and Elvis has his guitar. Broadway got the idea for Trinity while working on a cycle entitled “Worries of the Western World,” which was about Elvis and UFOs.
Trinity is part of the permanent collection of the Ogden Museum of Art at the University of New Orleans. In an interview, Broadway says that he's never had anyone complain about this painting as there's not "really anything to be offended about; Elvis Presley and Robert E. Lee both loved Jesus, and the Bible indicates that the feeling was mutual."
Trinity has been reproduced countless times in books and is available for sale as a print. A few of Broadway's other works are available via the links below; the former contains more.
(Unfortunately Clyde Broadway does not have a website of his own, but if you look hard enough you can find him anyway.)