Ulysses Davis (artist)
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January 13, 1913
Ulysses Davis | |
|---|---|
| Born | Ulysses Davis January 13, 1913 Fitzgerald, Georgia, U.S. |
| Died | 1990 Savannah, Georgia, U.S. |
| Known for | Wooden sculpture |
| Movement | American Folk |
Ulysses Davis (January 13, 1913 – 1990) was an African-American barber and self-taught sculptor. Davis is best known for his carvings of historical figures such as a set of mahogany busts of all the presidents (through George H. W. Bush) and similar portrait heads of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Kennedys and other leaders from the civil rights era.
Ulysses Davis was born in the railroad town of Fitzgerald, Georgia, to Mary and Malachi Davis. His father was a railway fireman, while his mother was a homemaker. The fourth of five children, Davis left school after the fourth grade to work as a railroad blacksmith’s assistant to help support his family. This aspiring wood carver started whittling the family’s firewood with a pocket knife as a child.
In 1942, Davis moved his family to Savannah, where he would live for 48 years, raising six sons and three daughters with his wife, Elizabeth. When he was laid off by the railroad in the 1950s, he opened the Ulysses Barber Shop in an outbuilding near his home at Bull and 45th Street. He lined the shelves of his barbershop with his wood carvings, creating a makeshift art gallery, and enjoyed discussing art with his customers. He typically created his sculptures, busts, canes and portraits freehand, without drawings, using a hatchet or band saw to start a piece and then finishing it with a chisel or knife. He designed many of his own tools, applying the metalworking skills he learned as a young man working as a railroad blacksmith. He even used barber scissors, on occasion, to get just the right texture on his sculptures, which he sometimes adorned with shoe polish, rhinestones and beads. When reflecting on his own work, the artist said: "These things are very dear to me. They’re a part of me. They’re my treasure. If I sold these, I’d be really poor."[1]
