Minneapolis Institute of Art

Ram

William Edmondson

Date

1938–42

Medium

Limestone

Department

Arts of the Americas

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

William Edmondson was a stonemason’s assistant in Tennessee when he felt a calling from God. He recalled, I was out in the driveway with some old pieces of stone when I heard a voice telling me to pick up my tools. . . . I looked up in the sky and right there in the noon daylight . . . God was telling me to cut figures. The artist began carving sculpture about 1933; four years later he was the first Black artist to have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Ram shows how Edmondson carved stone with sensitivity and empathy. He suggested the texture of wool in working the body and gave the animal personality through its attentive upturned head. United States, Americas

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