William Edmondson

c.1874-1951 · Nashville, Tennessee, USA

The son of freed slaves, he said God told him to pick up a chisel. Six years later he was the first Black artist to have a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art.

The life

Edmondson worked Nashville’s railroads and hospitals until, around 1931, he experienced a vision instructing him to carve. He began with tombstones for Nashville’s Black community, cut from salvaged limestone kerbs and demolition rubble, and moved on to angels, preachers, nurses and animals that filled his yard. Photographs of him reached New York, and in 1937 MoMA gave him a solo exhibition, a first for any Black artist, though the museum barely knew what to say about him.

The work

Compact, blocky limestone figures whose power comes from how little is carved: a dove is four cuts, a preacher is a column with a Bible. He worked with railroad spikes filed into chisels. The work now sits in the Smithsonian and major American collections, and Nashville names a park after him.

Why we love them

Direct carving, direct faith, zero art school. He heard an instruction and simply obeyed it for twenty years.

Go deeper

• Where to see outsider art, our full list of museums and collections.
• The glossary, if any of the terms here are new.

Kindred spirits

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