Listen "Miracles in Stone: The Curious Celebrity of God’s Sculptor"
Episode Synopsis
William Edmondson is a middle-aged laborer in Nashville, Tennessee, at the height of the Great Depression, when God tells him to carve a tombstone. Soon, he's the first African-American artist to have a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art. But his short-lived celebrity reveals the art world's problematic relationship with race.
You can see one of his many sculptures of a ram, of the Dorset sheep variety local to Tennessee, in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art: https://collections.artsmia.org/art/118808/ram-william-edmondson
You can see one of his many sculptures of a ram, of the Dorset sheep variety local to Tennessee, in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art: https://collections.artsmia.org/art/118808/ram-william-edmondson
More episodes of the podcast The Object
The Missing Tapestries of Helena Hernmarck
15/12/2025
Encore Episode: A Christmas Conspiracy
01/12/2025
The Object LIVE! Great Gatsby's Ghost!
17/11/2025
The Lost City That Wasn't
20/10/2025
Encore Episode: Finding Unicorns
06/10/2025
When Trees Could Talk
08/09/2025
The Curator in the Wall
11/08/2025
ZARZA We are Zarza, the prestigious firm behind major projects in information technology.