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WILLIAM E. ARTIS (1914 - 1977)
Vernon
.
Terra cotta, mounted on a wood base, circa 1946-50. Approximately 356 mm; 14 inches high, 560
mm; 22 inches high, including the base. Signed in the turtle neck collar, verso.
Provenance: Richard A. Long, Atlanta; thence by descent to his estate.
Vernon
is a large and stylized head byWilliam E.Artis and is typical of his beautiful modern sculpture
in terra cotta. Like his
Michael
in the collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art, and
Head of
a Boy
in the Amistad Research Center, Artis’s
Vernon
is a fine example of his 1940s portraits of
African-American youth that he made with a distinctive and sensitive realism.
Born in Washington, NC, William Ellisworth Artis moved to New York during the Harlem
Renaissance like fellow North Carolina native artists Charles Alston and Romare Bearden. Artis
took private sculpture lessons with Augusta Savage and studied with Robert Laurent at the Art
Students League with a Harmon Foundation scholarship.After service in the Air Force duringWorld
War II,Artis studied at the NewYork State College of Ceramics. Following the successful completion
of his second certificate program, according to Daniel Schulman, Artis applied to the Rosenwald
Fund in 1946 (for the second time); he was awarded a fellowship “to work with the native clays of
Alabama in the production of creative sculpture and sculptured free form ceramic ware.” Artis
decided late in the process to collaborate with the Croatian sculptor Ivan Mestrovic (1883- 1962),
newly appointed to Syracuse University, who was known for his attention to surface effect and
finish. Schulman p. 134; Nolting pp. 58-59, 89.
[20,000/30,000]
