Mel Edwards

Melvin "Mel" Edwards (born May 4, 1937)[1][2] is an American contemporary artist, teacher, and abstract steel metal sculptor. Additionally he has worked in drawing and printmaking. His artwork has political content often referencing African-American history, as well as the exploration of themes within slavery.[1][3] Visually his works are characterized by the use of straight-edged triangular and rectilinear forms in metal. He lives between Upstate New York and in Plainfield, New Jersey.[4]

Mel Edwards
Born
Melvin Eugene Edwards, Jr.

(1937-05-04) May 4, 1937
Houston, Texas, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of Southern California
Known forSculpture
Spouse(s)Karen Hamre, (m. 1960–1969, divorce),
Jayne Cortez, (m. 1976–2012, her death)
WebsiteOfficial website

He has had more than a dozen one-person show exhibits and been in over four dozen group shows. Edwards has had solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and the New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, New Jersey.

Early life and education

Melvin Eugene Edwards, Jr., was born May 4, 1937, in Houston, Texas, to Thelmarie Edwards and Melvin Edwards Sr,[2] and was the eldest of his parents' four children.[3] His father worked for Houston Lighting & Power and his parents divorced in early childhood.[4] He was raised in Dayton, Ohio for five years, but by middle school age the family moved back to Houston.[4][3] Edwards is black and grew up in Houston during a time of racial segregation. He attended E. O. Smith Junior High School and Phillis Wheatley High School.[5][3] He was a creator from a young age and was encouraged by his parents with his father building his first easel when he was 14 years old.[3] Edwards was introduced to abstract art by a high school teacher.[5] While attending high school he started to take art classes at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.[3]

In 1955 he moved to southern California to pursue studies at Los Angeles City College.[6] Edwards transferred schools to study art and play football at University of Southern California (USC), where he received his B.F.A. degree in 1965.[1][3][6] While attending USC, Edwards took a history course that was rooted in a European-centric view, which upset him and fueled him to learn more about African history. This inspired his travel to Africa five years later.[3]

He attended Los Angeles County Art Institute (known as Otis College of Art and Design) during breaks from USC to study sculpture with Renzo Fenci.[6] Additionally, he was mentored by Hungarian-American painter Francis de Erdely, and studied under Hal Gebhardt, Hans Burkhardt, and Edward Ewing.[7][5][8]

Teaching

In 1965, he went on to teach at the Chouinard Art Institute (now known as the California Institute of the Arts) until 1967.[6] He moved to New York City in 1967.[9] Additionally he taught at Orange County Community College in New York (1967-1969), and the University of Connecticut (1970-1972).[10]

In 1972, he began teaching art classes at Livingston College of Rutgers University, (now part of the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences).[11] By 1980 he was a full professor and teaching at the Mason Gross School of Creative and Performing Arts at Rutgers University.[11] By 2002, he retired from teaching.

Art career

His first one-person exhibition was held at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California, in 1965.[9] Edwards cited jazz music as an influence to his work.[12]

In 1965, Edwards was working in Los Angeles as a driver for a film company, on his breaks he would visit Tamarind Print Institute. It was at Tamarind where he met many influential national artists such as George Sugarman, Richard Hunt, Leon Golub, Louise Nevelson, and Gabriel Kohn.[13] Later in that year, Sugarman had a New York University art exhibition which Edwards photographed for him. At that exhibition, he met Al Held and he asked him for a job and Held pointed him to a recent Yale University graduate, painter William T. Williams.[14] The two artists went on to have a very close partnership continuing to this day.[15]

In 1970, Edwards took his first trip to Africa, visiting the West African republics of Nigeria, Togo, Benin, and Ghana.[3] This trip influenced his work, and was followed by other visits to Africa over the years.[3]

Work

Smokehouse (1968 – 1970)

Smokehouse (also known as, Smokehouse Associates, Smokehouse Collective, Smokehouse Painters) was a New York City-based community "wall painting" initiative created in part by Melvin Edwards and William T. Williams, spanning from 1968 until 1970.[16][13] The project existed as a social experiment asking the question "can abstraction solve social justice?"[6] The wall paintings consisted of hard edge graphics and geometric patterns,[6] occurring between 120th street and 125th street of Harlem. It was born out of the pondering of how the 19th-century tradition of stacking houses affected the human psyche and Melvin Edwards believed there is a strong correlation between living spaces and the lives of people. He mentions this in an interview at the Soul of a Nation Symposium in 2018 stating: “If you change places, you can change the lives of people.”[15] Edwards wanted the public to participate in the way cities were developing. In every project, Smokehouse would hire someone elderly within the community and someone young.

These murals were small scale- never going pass 16ft or higher due to the height restrictions of the initiatives ladder. Nevertheless, Smokehouse painted alleyways, tops of buildings, and sides of buildings. William T. Williams handled the logistics of the organization.[14] As the project continued, MOMA patron Celeste Bartos and David Rockefeller underwrote these projects. The more recognition they got the bigger people wanted them to go. They didn’t feel comfortable going too large.

121st and Sylvan still have the annual tradition of doing a community-based mural project because of Smokehouse.[14][17]

Lynch Fragments series (1963 – present)

Edwards’ work Some Bright Morning (1963) started his series called, Lynch Fragments and was a reference to Ralph Ginzburg’s anthology, 100 Years of Lynchings (1962).[18][19][7] The series now has more than 200 pieces.[3] Inspired by the turmoil of the Civil Rights Movement, these small-scale welded metal wall reliefs were developed in three periods: 1963 to 1967, 1973 to 1974, and 1978 to the present.[7][20] Edwards created the series as metaphor of the struggles experienced by African Americans.[21] A variety of metal objects are employed as the raw materials for these works, including hammer heads, scissors, locks, chains, and railroad splices.[3] The sculptures, usually no more than a foot tall, are hung on the wall at eye level.

Rocker series

Edwards is also known for smaller freestanding works, the kinetic "Rockers" series.[22] Works from the Rocker series include, Homage to Coco (1970), Good Friends in Chicago (1972), Avenue B (Rocker) (1975), Memories of Coco (1980), A Conversation with Norman Lewis (1980), among others.[23] These moving sculptures are inspired by his memories, including one of him falling off his grandmother’s rocking chair and another as a homage to his friendships. Edwards used the term “syncopate” to describe the interaction while rocking, and the relationship of syncopation in African-American music.[23]

Other work

He is also known for works executed in the medium of printmaking.

His large-scale, public art works include, Homage to My Father and the Spirit (1969, Cornell University, Appel Commons, Ithaca, New York),[24] Pyramid Up and Down Pyramid (1969, re-fabricated 2017, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City),[25][26] Homage to Billie Holiday and the Young Ones at Soweto (1977, Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland), Out of the Struggles of the Past to a Brilliant Future (1982, Mt Vernon Plaza, Columbus, Ohio),[27] and Breaking of the Chains (1995, San Diego, California).[28]

Exhibitions and collections

In 2012, his work appeared at MOMA PS-1.[5] A 30-year retrospective of his sculpture was held in 1993 at the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, New York.[25][29] A 50-year retrospective of his work entitled Melvin Edwards: Five Decades, opened at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas, on January 31, 2015, on view until May 10, 2015.[30][31] The exhibition also toured to the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University.[32][33] Edwards' works were featured in Art Basel Miami Beach 2015.[34][35]

Edwards work is in various public museum collections, including Museum of Modern Art (MoMA),[36] Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met),[37] Birmingham Museum of Art,[38] Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM),[39] Williams College Museum of Art,[40] among others.

Personal life

He was married in 1960 to Karen Hamre, together they had three children.[3] In 1969, the couple separated, Hamre and the children stayed in Los Angeles while Edwards had already moved to New York City.[14]

In 1976, Edwards married the poet Jayne Cortez.[41] Cortez and Edwards worked together: she wrote a series of poems to accompany her husband's work Lynch Fragments, and he illustrated her book Pissstained Stairs and the Monkey Man’s Wares (1969).[12][14]

His art studios are located in upstate New York and in Plainfield, New Jersey, and he often travels to Dakar, Senegal.[4]

Awards and honors

See also

References
  1. Samella S. Lewis, African American Art and Artists, University of California Press, 2003, p. 210. ISBN 0-520-23935-0
  2. "Edwards, Melvin 1937–", [[encyclopedia.com.
  3. Jegede, Dele (2009). Encyclopedia of African American Artists. ABC-CLIO. pp. 77–80. ISBN 9780313080609.
  4. Kauffman, Aubrey J. (2015-09-30). "Sculptor Mel Edward's 50 Years of Work on View at Zimmerli". U.S. 1 Newspaper, Princeton Info. Retrieved 2020-05-09.
  5. Kino, Carol (2012-10-17). "Rediscovering Someone Recognized". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-05-06.
  6. "Melvin Edwards". Hammer Museum, UCLA. Retrieved 2020-05-06.
  7. "Melvin Edwards Exhibition". Slash Paris. 2014. Retrieved 2019-08-02.
  8. "Man of Steel: The Welded Transfigurations of Melvin Edwards". Hyperallergic. 2014-11-22. Retrieved 2020-05-09.
  9. "Melvin Edwards: Crossroads". Ogden Museum of Southern Art. Retrieved 2020-05-07. In 1965 the Santa Barbara Museum of Art organized Edwards’ first solo exhibition, which launched his professional career.
  10. Joan Marter, "Melvin Edwards: Liberation and Remembrance", AlexanderGray.com.
  11. "Melvin Edwards · Experimental Printmaking Institute". Lafayette College. 2017-04-03. Retrieved 2020-05-09.
  12. Widener, Daniel (2010). Black Arts West: Culture and Struggle in Postwar Los Angeles. Duke University Press. pp. 173–174. ISBN 9780822392620.
  13. Kazarian, Choghakate (2019-11-06). "MELVIN EDWARDS with Choghakate Kazarian". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved 2020-05-06.
  14. Hadler, Mona (2018-02-19). "William T. Williams by Mona Hadler". BOMB Magazine. The Oral History Project. Retrieved 2020-05-06.
  15. "Artist Conversation: Melvin Edwards and William T. Williams". Youtube (Video). Mar 12, 2018.
  16. "Smokehouse, 1968-1970". The Studio Museum in Harlem. 2017-09-12. Retrieved 2020-05-06.
  17. Braun-Reinitz, Janet; Weissman, Jane (2009-06-29). "On the Wall: Four Decades of Community Murals in New York City". The Gotham Center for New York City History. Retrieved 2020-05-06.
  18. "Utonga (Lynch Fragment) 1988 Melvin Edwards American". metmuseum.org. Retrieved 2020-05-07.
  19. "Premonition" Archived January 15, 2014, at the Wayback Machine (Part of the Lynch Fragment Series), Birmingham Museum of Art.
  20. "Melvin Edwards: Five Decades Exhibition at Columbus Museum of Art". Columbus Museum of Art. 2016-01-08. Retrieved 2020-05-07.
  21. Andrews, Gail C. (2010). Birmingham Museum of Art: Guide to the Collection (Art Catalog). Birmingham, AL: Birmingham Museum of Art. p. 254. ISBN 978-1-904832-77-5.
  22. Edwards, Daniel (2017-07-05), "Twentieth-century display case archive", Sculpture and the Vitrine, Routledge, pp. 197–208, doi:10.4324/9781315088235-10, ISBN 978-1-315-08823-5
  23. Craft, Catherine (2013). "Conversations with Melvin Edwards Extended Version". Nasher Sculpture Center. Retrieved 2020-05-07.
  24. "Homage to My Father and the Spirit". Cornell University Library Digital Collections. Retrieved 2020-05-09.
  25. Otfinoski, Steven (2014). African Americans in the Visual Arts. A to Z of African Americans, Facts on File library of American history. New York City, NY: Facts on File, Inc. p. 74. ISBN 9781438107776.
  26. "An Incomplete History Of Protest Selections From The Whitneys Collection 1940 2017". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2020-05-09.
  27. "Out of the Struggles of the Past to a Brilliant Future". Ohio Outdoor Sculpture. Retrieved 2020-05-07.
  28. Holloway, Camara Dia (2011-02-25). "Mel Edwards & Jayne Cortez, Visual/Verbal Dialogue, University of Delaware". Association for Critical Race Art History (ACRAH).
  29. Lucinda H. Gedeon; Melvin Edwards; Melvin Edwards sculpture : a thirty-year retrospective, 1963–1993, Neuberger Museum of Art, State University of New York at Purchase; Seattle: distributed by the University of Washington Press, 1993. World Cat.
  30. Jerome Weeks, "Melvin Edwards At The Nasher: Man of Steel", Art & Seek, January 31, 2015.
  31. Lance Esplund, "Review of ‘Melvin Edwards: Five Decades’ at the Nasher Sculpture Center", The Wall Street Journal, March 31, 2015.
  32. Patti Verbanas, "Melvin Edwards: Five Decades", Rutgers Today, September 18, 2015.
  33. "First Melvin Edwards Retrospective in 20 Years Opens September 1", Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, July 20, 2015.
  34. "Art Basel Miami Beach: exhibition at Collins Park" Archived December 1, 2015, at the Wayback Machine, e-flux.
  35. Siobhan Morrissey, "Art Basel Week 2015 guide: Public and free, in 3D", Miami Herald, November 27, 2015.
  36. "Melvin Edwards". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 2020-05-07.
  37. "Collection: Melvin Edwards". The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 2020-05-07.
  38. "Premonition (Part of the Lynch Fragment Series) | Birmingham Museum of Art". Retrieved 2020-05-07.
  39. "Melvin Edwards". Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved 2020-05-07.
  40. "Melvin Edwards". Williams College Museum of Art. Retrieved 2020-05-07.
  41. Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers, vol. 1, p. 121.
  42. Fellows Archived January 14, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
  43. "Melvin Edwards". Dieu Donné. Retrieved 2020-05-09.
  44. "Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts: Melvin Edwards" Archived May 23, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, Commencement Honorees 2014, Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
  45. "Some Bright Morning: The Art Of Melvin Edwards" at African Film Festival, New York, 2016.
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