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Winner of the Mary Ellen LoPresti Publication Award, Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA), 2022

William Edmondson (1874–1951) was the first African American sculptor to have a one-person exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. Edmondson started sculpting in his late fifties, after the Nashville Women's Hospital, where he worked as a janitor, closed. During his life he was well known for his yard art, such as whimsical birdbaths and "critters" of real and imaginary provenance, and the grave markers he carved for African American families. His sculptures are now highly sought after by collectors.

The Sculpture of William Edmondson: Tombstones, Garden Ornaments, and Stonework is the first large-scale museum examination of artist William Edmondson's career in over twenty years. Organized by Cheekwood Curator-at-Large Marin R. Sullivan, the exhibition draws upon new scholarship and methodologies to contextualize Edmondson's sculpture, both within the histories of Nashville during the Interwar years and the art histories of modern art in the United States.

Edmondson has largely been confined to narratives that focus on his artistic discovery by white patrons in the 1930s, his work's formal resonance with so-called primitivism and direct carving techniques, and his place in the traditions of African American "outsider" art. This exhibition revisits Edmondson's work within these frameworks, but also seeks to reevaluate his sculpture on its own terms and as part of a comprehensive practice that included the creation of commercial objects rather than strictly fine art.

The exhibition's title references the sign that hung on the outside of Edmondson's studio, advertising what was for sale and on view to the public in his yard, including tombstones, birdbaths, and statuary meant to be used and intended for outdoor rather than gallery display.

A riveting biography of a California modernist artist-designer that asks what it means to commit to a creative life.

In the summer of 1951, Claire Falkenstein faced the greatest decision of her life: remain in Paris and pursue her artistic ambitions or return to her husband in California? She was just shy of her 42nd birthday, did not speak French, knew almost no one in Paris, and had nowhere to live, but she did know this: “If I come home now,” she wrote her husband, “it will be the end of me as an artist.”

Drawing on extensive archival research, Marin R. Sullivan chronicles the extraordinary life and career of Falkenstein (1908–1997), one of the most innovative and iconoclastic artists of the 20th century.

• Features more than 75 reproductions of Claire Falkenstein’s work and photographs of her life.
• Explores her role in shaping San Francisco’s modernist scene.
• Chronicles her years in Europe, where she created the celebrated entrance gates to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy.
• Traces Falkenstein’s rise as a prominent public sculptor in Southern California.
• Vividly written by Marin R. Sullivan, an art historian and expert in 20th-century sculpture.

Discover the powerful and captivating story of an artist who defied convention, challenged expectations, and dedicated herself to a creative life.