Philadelphia Wireman
The Philadelphia Wireman is the working name given to an unknown outsider artist responsible for approximately 1,200 small-scale wire-frame sculptures that were found abandoned on a street outside a transient home in Philadelphia in 1982. The artist is assumed to be male (due to the strength required to bend some of the heavy-gauge wire in the sculptures); it is hypothesised that the sculptures were abandoned after their creator's death. Nothing is known about the artist's motives.
According to the Fleisher-Ollman Gallery, which now holds some of the work, the wire frames include plastic, glass, McDonald's packaging, umbrella parts, batteries, pens, leather, reflectors, nuts and bolts, nails, foil, coins, toys, watches, eyeglasses, tools and jewelry, bound to the structures by rubber bands and tape.
The artist's unusual, possibly monomanical devotion to the particular demands of his chosen form has led to comparisons with artist Henry Darger.