Herbert Singleton

1945 - 2007

The oldest of eight children, Herbert Singleton was born and grew up in Algiers and New Orleans, Louisiana. When he was 3, his father abandoned his mother.After only 7 years of education, he hit the tough streets of New Orleans. Those streets landed him in the Louisiana State Penitentiary off and on for 14 years, on narcotics charges between 1967 – 1986.  Singleton started carving sticks and canes that he sold to pimps, drug dealers, and even horse drawn carriage drivers in the French Quarter. His “killer sticks” were once allegedly used to kill a robber during a mugging.  Using manual tools such as knives, chisels, and mallets, Singleton carved wood he found in the levees of the Mississippi River.  He said, “When the river was low, I would find a plank of wood to carve.  I would look at it and wonder if some life fell apart.”  Singleton painted his carving in vivid enamel depicting lynchings, prostitution, and street life in the ghettos as well as biblical events.  Many of Singleton’s carvings are of the racial injustices he witnessed in the streets of New Orleans.  In 1980, one of his sisters and her 2 friends were murdered by 3 white police officers as they hunted down another African American person who shot a fellow white officer. Singleton, for 12 hours, was questioned, beaten, and nearly suffocated.  William Fagaly, curator of African art at the New Orleans Museum of Art said, "He wasn't imitating anyone else. He had his own voice, a very strong voice. He addressed African-American issues, race issues, inequality and New Orleans traditions like jazz funerals, which are unique to this city. His pieces are not just powerful but beautiful."  His deeply carved doors, panels, and stumps still resonate the social political strife that is still present today. Singleton survived Katrina but it weakened him and he died of lung cancer at the age of 62. ⁵