William Edmondson's "Lady," which sold for $237,500
Nashville-born artist William Edmondson (1874-1951) garnered some of the highest bids in last week's Outsider and Vernacular Art auction at New York auction house Christie's. Three of the sculptor's works were up for bid, and each of them sold for more than $100,000 — at a grand total of $472,500 for all three. Other high earners were Bill Traylor, Henry Darger and Thornton Dial — the latter of whom erected a public sculpture in Nashville that's located, appropriately, in William Edmondson Park.
What's more, another of Edmondson's pieces — "Miss Lucy, an Uplifted Lady" — sold just days later in Knoxville. Sold by Case Antiques Inc. Auctions and Appraisals on Jan. 26, that piece went for $324,000 to a private collector, as reported by the Knoxville News Sentinel.
Christie's has its own history with Edmondson — in 2016, the auction house broke a world record for outsider art when Edmondson's “Boxer” sold for $785,000. Edmondson, who was the son of freed slaves, has a history that's still deeply rooted in Nashville — Cheekwood has one of the nation's largest collections of Edmondson's sculptures, and last year celebrated the 80th anniversary of the artist's historic exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art. He was also the first African-American to have a solo show at MoMA. Just last year, the city decided against a proposal that would put the site where Edmondson lived and worked up for sale to developers.
Edmondson's work features prominently in the exhibit Outliers and American Vanguard Art that's currently on view at LACMA.
