Fleet of ShipsWalter Flax (1896 - 1982)
About the Artist/Site
Walter Flax was born in 1896 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and moved a few years later to a home in Yorktown, Virginia near the many docks and shipyards of the Virginia Peninsula. As a young man, Flax rode his bicycle to Newport News daily to watch ships enter and leave the port; upon the outbreak of World War I, Flax attempted to enlist in the Navy, but was denied entry. Applying once more to join the U.S. ranks in World War II many years later, he was found unfit for service. Not able to work for the Navy directly, Flax dedicated himself to the building of watercraft with materials he found along the peninsula over the course of forty years, including sheet metal, toasters, tin cans, flashlights, and colanders. Flax eventually completed around fifty vessels, which he displayed on the wooded property surrounding his one-room cabin home. While hospitalized for a three year stretch toward the end of his life, many of Flax’s ships disintegrated. While the entire environment has since been cleared from the Yorktown site, the Smithsonian American Art Museum retains one of Flax’s ships in its collection.
Narrative by Gabrielle Christiansen, 2024
Sources:
- Scalora, Sal. "Visionäre Gesamtkunstwerke Zehn Eigenwillige Environments." Kunstforum 112, 1991.
- Zimmer, William. "Making a Statement With Castoff Objects." New York Times, March 6, 1994.
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Map & Site Information
Yorktown, Virginia
us
Latitude/Longitude: 37.2387556 / -76.5096731
Nearby Environments
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