stephen jm palmer

was born in 1882.

He worked as a farm laborer and logger in rural Wisconsin and Minnesota.

He suffered a spinal injury in the 1920s that left him bedridden in later life.

He painted prolifically during his last decades.

His medium was water color. His work... stylized, intense, obsessive, colorful, dynamic, naive.

He was devoted to the Sacred Heart of both Jesus and Mary. The initials JM denote this devotion.

Stephen JM Palmer died in 1965.

"Holy Mary Pray For Me" is inscribed on his tombstone, alone, in a row for single men.

His paintings were discovered in 2003 in Necedah, Wisconsin, the site of an unsanctioned shrine to the Virgin Mary.

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