On a summer evening in 1975, an eight-year-old ran onto a grass runway in Nebraska and was hit by a landing airplane. The propeller took his dominant left hand. He picked up a paintbrush with the other one in 1994 and has painted every day since: more than 17,000 original paintings, sold directly to collectors in more than 40 countries.
"Matt we need to remove your hand." His answer, at eight: "yes of course, that is fine with me."
From "Call me Whatever you Want, I am Matt Sesow," an essay Matt wrote around 2002. He remembers the accident as summer 1974; the newspaper report and his own records date it to June 7, 1975.
I had survived the plane's propeller striking the arm that fed blood to my dominant left hand. I had survived being dragged over 100 yards down a grassy runway in front of my playmates and siblings, who had come together that summer evening in 1974 for a friendly game of ball-tossing called 'SPUD'. I had survived the stillness on the runway as neighbors removed my shoes and used their laces to apply a tourniquet as I lay motionless and bleeding.
Looking back on those paintings, it is obvious to me that I was healing. I was taking about 20 years of bottled-up emotion from my childhood trauma and putting it on paper and canvas. Most of the figures I drew and represented were in various stages of amputation and uncertainty. There was lots of red and lots of black sharp lines and lots of emotion.
I am not just a 'self taught' artist, but I am a 'self teaching' artist. … Call me whatever you want, I am Matt Sesow.
Matt Sesow, "Call me Whatever you Want, I am Matt Sesow," c. 2002. Read the essay record
Every line below links to its sources on history.sesow.com: the clippings, letters, catalogs and press that prove it.
About 8:30 on the evening of Saturday, June 7, near Eden's Sky Ranch, a grass runway at 112th and Holdrege Streets in Lancaster County, Nebraska. The propeller severed his left arm. A surgeon back from the Vietnam War reattached it at St. Elizabeth Community Health Center in Lincoln, but the dominant left hand could not be saved. Sources
He wore a hook as a child. Every job he has held since, from detasseling corn at 13 to software engineering to painting, he has done with one hand. Sources
At 14 he made the US team at tryouts in Omaha and went to Newcastle, England for the Disabled Children's Invitation International Games. He brought home seven medals, two of them gold, in the discus and a running relay; the US finished third of 21 teams. His school paper called it "Triumph in England." Sources
On August 10, 1981, the band played a charity gig in Newcastle for the disabled children at the games. Thirty-four years later the documentary about his life took its title from their album "Join Hands." Sources
Working as a software engineer in Washington, DC, he began painting with no training. "Then I stopped having nightmares," he told the Washington Post. Sources
About a year after he began painting, he stopped wearing his prosthetic hand. "I noticed people actually stared less at me," he told Reuters. Sources
His first show with VSA, the international organization on arts and disability, in an exhibition of area artists in February. Sources
Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital in Lincoln, Nebraska selected his painting for its 2002 Art Abilities Project calendar. Sources
His "Before and After" took best of show at the Fourth Annual Acquisitions Exhibition by Artists With Disabilities at Sunnyview in Schenectady, New York, as reported by The Daily Gazette on May 15. Sources
Group show at America Oh Yes! gallery. Sources
His paintings hung in the Horizon Ballroom of the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington for the October 25 commemoration. Sources
And in Artesian magazine, his artist statement "The Accident." Sources
Cate Hescox's feature on his two paintings at the American Visionary Art Museum and the prosthetic hand he gave up. Sources
"Animal Farm" (2007), "Pet Project" (2010, 41 paintings), "Trickle Down" (2012, 85 paintings), "Access Denied" (2014, which he called one of his most successful shows ever) and "Divide and Conquer / Rise Above" (2016, nearly sold out), plus the "99 Pieces of Art" benefits for VSA programs in 2012 and 2015 and "80 Years: Guernica Revisited" in 2017. 2007, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016
The UN chose him as a disabled artist for "Break Barriers, Open Doors." The full story below. Sources
Susan Froyd on "Access Denied" in Denver, August 21. Read it at Westword
Debra Bruno's feature on how a one-handed artist is seizing DC's art world, January 2. Sources
The largest museum solo of his career. More below. Full record
A series of National Cherry Blossom Festival paintings made with his right hand and his left arm. Sources
In 2013 the United Nations Postal Administration chose Matt Sesow as a disabled artist for "Break Barriers, Open Doors," its stamp issue on disability rights, in a series with Chuck Close, Josephine King, Sargy Mann and Pete Eckert. His painting "Dive Bomb" was unveiled at the UN High Level Meeting on Disability and Development in New York on September 23, 2013.
From August 31 to December 18, 2021, Old Dominion University's Baron and Ellin Gordon Art Galleries in Norfolk, Virginia gave him the largest museum solo exhibition of his career: more than 225 works from 1994 to 2021, including hundreds of icons he drew straight onto the gallery walls, shown alongside 13 paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat. He also painted seven street banners that hung around Norfolk.
The Virginian-Pilot covered it, WAVY-TV interviewed the curator, Cullen Strawn, live on air, and VEER Magazine named it one of the best of 2021.
In his newest work, the arm is the tool. Matt paints with what remains of his left arm, dabbing, dragging and printing color straight onto the canvas, and works the rest with his right hand. He calls it re-enabling, not compensating.
The name was never an apology. It is the byline.
Every painting comes from his studio in downtown Washington, DC. He sells directly to the people who hang the work, and through ArtLifting, which champions artists impacted by disability.
Write to Matt at sesow@sesow.com or text +1 929-324-6624.
Every record on art and disability, with sources, at history.sesow.com
"Join Hands: The Life and Art of Matt Sesow" is a documentary by Leslye Abbey of Snowflake Video Productions, who began filming his story in the early 2000s. It follows him from his Nebraska childhood to his 2010 wedding to the painter Dana Ellyn.
On the evening of June 7, 1975, when he was eight, he ran onto a grass runway near Eden's Sky Ranch in Lancaster County, Nebraska, and was struck by a small airplane that was landing. The propeller severed his left arm. Surgeons in Lincoln reattached it, but his dominant left hand could not be saved and was amputated.
His right hand, which was not his dominant hand before the accident. In his Re-enabled and Fingerless works he also paints with his left arm itself, pressing, dragging and printing the paint without a brush.
Yes, and he says so. He has shown with VSA, the international organization on arts and disability, since 1998. The United Nations chose him as a disabled artist for its 2013 stamp issue "Break Barriers, Open Doors," and since 2025 ArtLifting has represented him as a disabled artist.
Yes. In 2013 the UN Postal Administration chose his painting "Dive Bomb" for "Break Barriers, Open Doors," alongside Chuck Close, Josephine King, Sargy Mann and Pete Eckert. It was unveiled in New York on September 23, 2013, and sold out.
Yes. In August 1981, at 14, he competed for the United States at the Disabled Children's Invitation International Games in Newcastle, England, and won seven medals, two of them gold, in the discus and a running relay. The US team finished third of 21.
More than 17,000 original paintings, sold directly to collectors in more than 40 countries since 1994.
Directly from Matt at sesow.com, where new work goes up every week at new.sesow.com, or through ArtLifting.