BUFORD, GA. — Bidding was aggressive for a Purvis Young (1943-2010) signed painting, an oil and house paint on board from circa 1974 on April 27, the first day of Slotin Folk Art’s two-day auction, Self-Taught Art Masterpieces. Spanning 96 inches long by 19 inches high, “Trapped Spirits” depicted exactly that, a purgatory of human souls in dynamic, elongated poses of ecstasy, trauma and despair. The painting sold for $127,500, including buyer’s premium. Young famously painted on objects — doors, pieces of cardboard and wood — scavenged from his neighborhood, and his artworks were a depiction of everyday life in that neighborhood. From Young’s Goodbread Alley period in the 1970s, “Trapped Spirits” was especially desirable, according to Steve Slotin, the firm’s co-owner. “We had several people on the phones,” said Slotin, and ultimately, the work went to an unidentified phone bidder, relatively new to Slotin. The painting had provenance to Joy Moos Gallery, a Miami art dealer who, according to a January 2020 Washington Post article by Deirdra Funcheon, in 1989 signed Young to an exclusive contract and introduced his work to contemporary art galleries in New York and Chicago. Exhibition history for the work included “Purvis Young Painting from the Streets,” 1993, and “Street Visions: The Works of Purvis Young,” 1993, as well as a show at Northwestern University’s Block Museum, “Looking Life Straight In The Face, The Art of Purvis Young.” Additional highlights from this sale will be discussed in an upcoming review.