Marian Spore Bush (b. 1878, Bay City, Michigan; d. 1946, New York City) channeled spirits to create swirling, impastoed oil paintings of enchanted worlds and ominous visions. After an encounter with a Ouija board in 1919, Spore Bush taught herself to paint under the guidance of these spirits, which she called alternately “They” and “the People.” These entities instructed her to give up her then-occupation of dentistry and move to New York, where she would become known as the “Angel of the Bowery” for her charity work and gain renown for her rapidly rendered, freehand depictions of flowers, birds, prophets, and animals as well as for her predictive powers. Around 1930, warnings from “the People” about an oncoming world war caused Spore Bush’s visions to darken and her palette to shift from vibrant colors to grisaille, which she used to render allegorical scenes about suffering and redemption. Explaining the motives of “the People” in her posthumously published autobiography They, Spore Bush wrote: “They live, think, and devise motifs and technique simply ‘to prove that there is no Death.’”