William Edmundson

1870 - 1951

In 1937, William Edmondson, the son of freed slaves living on a plantation outside Nashville, Tennessee, was the first African American artist to have a one-man show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He was among the first wave of self-taught artists to come to the forefront in the U.S. With little formal education and working originally as a laborer, farmhand, and porter, Edmondson began carving enigmatic limestone tombstones in the early 1930s, claiming he had been directed to create by God. At first he made memorials for the congregation of his local church. He then began selling tombstones from his front yard along with carved “garden ornaments”.  Edmondson gradually developed his skills, sculpting a whole range of distinctive subjects including biblical figures such as Noah, Adam and Eve, angels and crucifixions, and local subjects such as preachers and school teachers, birds and animals, celebrities of the day, nudes, and female figures. His forms are simple and serene with a minimum of detail, the texture of his rough carving balancing with areas of smooth fullness. He made several hundred limestone sculptures, all conveying his unique brand of religious symbolism, combining a simple elegance of overall mass with inner strength. ¹