Antiques & Collectibles: Tramp Art

Much lore surrounds tramp art, as well as much misinformation, because by its very nature tramp art was produced by those who traveled from place to place. These people weren’t keen on leaving paperwork behind. 

One example of the misinformation, comes in the name itself. Some people call tramp art, “hobo” art as if it were one in the same. Both used created treasures around the campfire, but the tramp and the hobo came from very different mentalities. In fact, the hobo held a healthy fear of the tramp. 

The hobo was generally a person with a run of bad luck who traveled the trains from place to place in search of work. The tramp was a wanderer, unemployed by choice. He made his money most often from nefarious activity. He took jobs sometimes, enough to get by, but that was not his choice. He was the penultimate con man who favored slight of hand to manual labor. Generally, while the hobo had fear of the tramp, the tramp had contempt for the hobo because the hobo sought an honest wage. Still the two met at campsites, jail cells and the like. A sort of truce evolved over a secret artform the two developed. It was at the campsites that the self-educated tramps practiced their artwork to pass the time. 

As it turns out, the tramp happened to have an eye for creating unusual homemade items that have quite a history, as the tramp tells it. And that’s part of the allure of these treasures. Good con men tell good stories, to be sure, so each piece comes with a tale that has been passed down from generation to generation, leaving the indelible mark of its creator. 

To add more to the mystery of the older works, much tramp art was not really recognized at all until the 1860s (shortly after the cigar box came into use) by the German and Scandinavian tramp, known as Wanderbuersons, who came to this country. Around the American Civil War, soldiers took up the art form. They had time between skirmishes, and like the tramp and hobo around the campfire, the soldier found himself wanting to do more than just sit and talk. There was a need to be creative in the midst of all the chaos.