Two curving palm trees set against a dramatic sky, with figure in boat below, signed lower right: R. Demps, oil on canvas board, circa 1970s. Rodney Demps’ career as an artist is unique among the 26 original Florida Highwaymen painters. Never selling his work on the road as his fellow Highwaymen did, Demps is included in the group due to his direct connection to both A.E. “Bean” Backus and Alfred Hair. Inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame in 2004, Rodney Demps’ body of work is unlike that of any of the other Highwaymen artists. His early landscape paintings show a strong influence by Hair, infused with his own more painterly approach and an air of surrealism in their light and movement. His later work, which he took up again full-time in 2001, branched out far beyond simple paintings, and included drawing, collage, murals, and multi-media representations of various aspects of his life, from the military, to football, to depictions of his grandmother’s grocery store. Overall Size: 21 x 17 in. Sight Size: 20 x 15 1/2 in. Location O