The Great William Edmondson, Artist. 1874-1951
was the most notable sculptor active in Tennessee during the 1930s and 40s, and today he remains one of the most important American folk artists of the twentieth century. During his life he was well known for his yard art, such as whimsical birdbaths and “critters” of real and imaginary provenance, sculptures of everyday people, and the grave markers he carved for African American families.
The exact date of Edmondson's birth isn’t known – the family Bible in which his birth year was written was destroyed by fire. But in approximately 1874, William Edmondson was born to Orange and Jane Brown Edmondson, former slaves working as sharecroppers on a plantation in rural Davidson County, Tennessee. One of six children, William spent his youth working in the corn fields, seeing “angels in the clouds” and believing God spoke to him. He had little formal education. His description of one such vision was transcribed in the Museum of Modern Art’s 1937 press release:
“I had a vision. Yes, sir, I wuz jus’ a little boy ’bout 13, 14 years old, doin’ in de corn fields. I saw in de east world, I saw in de west world, I saw de flood. I ain’t never read no books nor no Bible and I saw de water come. It come up over de rocks, covered up de rocks and went over de mountains. God, he jus’ showed me how.”
When his father died in late 1889, 16-year-old Edmondson refused to continue to tirelessly work on the plantation and relocated to Nashville for work. After working odd jobs and in the railroad industry, Edmondson took a job as a hospital orderly at the city’s all-white Women’s Hospital, where he worked for 25 years, earning enough money to buy a modest house. When the Great Depression struck the hospital closed, and Edmondson found himself without work. Desperate for money, he sold fruit from the trees in his garden and took odd jobs — one as an assistant to a stonemason, who taught him to carve limestone.
“I looked up in the sky and right there in the noon daylight He hung a tombstone out for me to make.”
Edmondson said the visions showed him tombstones and other shapes to carve as clearly as most people see clouds.
With little money for raw materials, Edmondson worked with limestone from unconventional sources — taken from demolished houses and disused kerbstones. He worked with a sledgehammer and improvised tools, including chisels fashioned from railway spikes. His front yard became his workshop and, as news of his work spread through Nashville, city workers began to bring stone to him at no cost. He began by making tombstones for people in his Nashville African-American community before expanding to carve animals and people, almost always with biblical significance. In a Time magazine article of November 1, 1937, Edmondson was quoted as follows:
“This here stone n’all those out there in the yard—came from God. It’s the work of Jesus speaking his mind in my mind. I must be one of His ‘ciples. These here is mirkels I can do. Can’t nobody do these but me. I can’t help carving I just does it."
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