William Edmondson was the first African American stonemason and sculptor to have a solo exhibition at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).
Background
William Edmondson was born somewhere between 1870 and 1886 in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. He was the son of George Edmondson and Jane Compton, both former slaves. Very little is known about his early life. His father died while Edmondson was young and his mother supported the family by picking crops until the children were old enough to work.
Education
Edmondson never had any formal education or artistic training.
Career
In about 1900 he worked as a laborer and switchman for the Nashville, Chattanooga, and St. Louis railway shops. He reportedly suffered an accident in 1907 and in 1908 began work as a servant, fireman, and janitor for the Nashville Woman's Hospital (later Baptist Hospital); he served until the hospital's close in 1931.
Using the primitive tools of a handyman - flat chisels made from iron spikes and a battered hammer for a mallet - he began to cut away at limestone from wrecked buildings in Nashville. By the mid-1930's Edmondson's work was well known to artists and collectors in Nashville. In 1937 Alfred and Elizabeth Starr introduced Louise Dahl-Wolfe, a visiting photographer for Harper's Bazaar, to him. Dahl-Wolfe returned to New York City with several sculptures and photographs, but William Randolph Hearst, who controlled the magazine, would not allow photographs of a black man to appear in it. The photographer then turned to the Museum of Modern Art. Museum director Alfred H. Barr, Jr. , and several of the trustees were at that time seeking "modern primitive" art, and Edmondson was the first black man given a one-man show at the MOMA. The exhibit, set up by Dorothy Miller, included twelve pieces and opened on October 20, 1937.
The following year Mrs. Cornelius N. Bliss of New York lent Edmondson's most famous piece - two seated figures entitled "Mary and Martha" - to the exhibition "Three Centuries of Art in the United States. " Assembled by A. Conger Goodyear, Barr, and Miller, and held at the Jeu de Paume in Paris, the exhibition also included works by Jo Davidson, Jacob Epstein, Henry Varnum Poor, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens.
In 1939 and 1940 Edmondson was twice commissioned by the Works Project Administration's Federal Art Project; unlike most WPA artists who were given specific projects, he apparently was free to work as he pleased. Edmondson's work was also on display at the Nashville Art Gallery in February 1941, the Nashville Artists Guild in November 1951, and the Tennessee Fine Arts Center at Cheekwood in April and May 1964.
His work has been described as unsophisticated, concise, forceful, "unskilled yet oddly sometimes enchantingly, eloquent. " Out of necessity he worked exclusively in limestone and on a small scale. He carved directly into the stone and retained the shape of the block. The early tombstones reflected his lack of education and his frugality; words and dates often extended around the edges of the stone and spelling errors were ingeniously corrected.
The majority of his subjects stemmed from the Bible - the only book with which he was familiar, although he claimed he never read it. His favorites included Mary and Martha, the lamb of God, doves, angels, and preachers. Edmondson also dealt with secular pieces - "Lady with a Cloak, " "Woman with a Bustle" -
and there was little difference in his treatment of the mundane and celestial subjects. Although they lacked anatomical detail, his works gained individual character through subtle differentiations in physical features or dress; "The Lawyer" with his straight factual eyebrows and book held tightly against his chest was distinguished from "The Preacher, " whose eyebrows fluttered slightly upward and whose book raised in his hand suggested a religious tone. Edmondson often balanced freestanding pieces with elegant bustles or elaborately tied hair that reached to the floor. His treatment of animal subjects - "Ram Resting, " "Mourning Doves" - was freer of the block than his human representations and reflected a more developed sense of three-dimensional form. In 1949 his health began to fail and he stopped carving. He died in Nashville.
Religion
A devout Baptist - he called God his "heavenly daddy" - Edmondson attributed his talent and his will to use it to a vision he experienced in about 1931, in which God commanded him to preach and cut tombstones.
With no anticipation of monetary gain (he gave many of his early works away, sold others for $2-$20, and took gin for the rest) Edmondson considered his work to be "the word in Jesus speaking his mind in my mind. I must be one of his disciples. These here are miracles I can do. Cain't nobody do these but me. "
Personality
Untraveled and unlettered - it is probable that he never left Nashville or saw any contemporary works of art other than his own - Edmondson was nonetheless an unspoiled craftsman, pleased but not governed by public praise.
Quotes from others about the person
Alfred H. Barr, Jr. commented: "Recognition of the achievements of naive or self-taught artists is one of the discoveries of contemporary taste. Usually the naive artist works in the easier medium of painting. Edmondson, however, has chosen to work in limestone, which he attacks with extraordinary courage and directness, to carve out simple, emphatic forms. The spirit of his work does not betray the inspiration which he believes to be his active guide. "