Lonnie Holley (AL, b. 1950), Sandstone Carving of Two Faces

1994, carved sandstone, signed and dated to verso.

5 1/2 x 3 x 1 1/2 in.

Lonnie Holley was born in 1950 in Birmingham, Alabama. He was the 7th of 27 children born into a Black family during the height of the Jim Crow era. His childhood was difficult and chaotic, and has informed his work ever since. After two of his sister’s children died in a house fire in 1979, Holley carved homemade tombstones from a soft sandstone-like material – a by-product of Birmingham’s iron and steel industry. Inspired by the material, Holley began to make sculptures from the stone.

Since 1979, Holley has devoted his life to the practice of improvisational creativity. His art and music — born out of struggle and hardship but, perhaps more importantly, also out of furious curiosity and biological necessity — has manifested itself in drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, performance, and sound. His sculptures are constructed from found materials in the oldest tradition of African American sculpture. Objects already imbued with cultural and artistic metaphor are combined into narrative sculptures that commemorate places, people, and events.

His works are in the collections of major museums throughout the country, are on permanent display at the United Nations, and have been displayed in the White House Rose Garden. In January 2014, Holley completed a one-month artist residency with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation on Captiva Island, Florida, site of the acclaimed artist’s studio.

Bio Courtesy of United States Artists website

Sandstone with scattered flaking; lichen growing in crevices.