Joseph Elmer Yoakum witnessed firsthand the golden age of American railroads and circuses, inspiring a lifelong desire to travel. He created various accounts of his origins, at times claiming to be one of thirteen children of a Navajo couple from the Window Rock Reservation in Arizona, and at other times descending from an African-American family. Though he had little formal schooling, the notation system in his drawings suggests he was not illiterate.
As a teenager, he ran away to join a circus, later becoming a sailor and apparently traveling extensively. Twice married (around 1910 and in 1929), he enlists as a soldier during World War I. His activities between the wars remain unclear, but by the 1940s, he sett led permanently in Chicago. Widowed, he opened a small shop of bric-a-brac and paintings in 1966 and began drawing, claiming inspiration and guidance from God. Some drawings are inscribed with the country and location depicted, sometimes including his address, date, and copyright. Many depict sites along circus routes that employed him, as well as his home state of Missouri.
Yoakum’s landscapes balance dream and memory, evoking anatomical boards, with mountains resembling brain slices and rivers like blood vessels.