James “Son” Thomas

1926 - 1993

Not only was James Henry Thomas renowned for his music, he was also a gifted sculptor. Growing up in his grandparents’ home in the Mississippi Delta, he rarely played with other children but would spend his time exploring clay and learning to play the guitar. At school he was given the nickname “Son Ford” after the Ford tractors he modeled in clay or wood, later shortened to “Son”. He began to sell his sculptures initially to pay for school materials.  But it was not until the 1960’s that he gained recognition for his art. After leaving school, Thomas worked as a sharecropper alongside his father. He became popular for his blues guitar playing and eventually he was able to leave the cotton fields and earn a living from his music. Working from mental images and using local river-clay, he would sculpt animals, birds and heads, and leave them to dry in the sun, afterwards embellishing the heads with paint, glass marble eyes, ribbons and artificial hair. A stint as a gravedigger revived his interest in the skulls he had fashioned from clay as a child.  He began to make more as a reminder to people of their mortality, often giving drama to his creations by adding human teeth or lining the eye-sockets with aluminum foil.  ¹

Thomas was one of the artists featured in the landmark book and exhibits “Black Folk Art in America” 1930 - 1980.