Melvin Edwards was raised in Houston and now divides his time between New York City and Senegal. A 1965 graduate of the University of Southern California, Edwards had his first solo exhibition at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art the same year. Known both for large-scale public art projects and smaller, abstract, welded reliefs, Edwards’ cosmopolitan work is often inspired by civil rights, American history, and his deep and varied ties to African cultures. In 2015, a five-decade retrospective of his work was organized by the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas. The Baltimore Museum of Art has organized an exhibition focusing on Edwards’ relationship to Africa opening in fall 2019.
“I think all art is abstract. . . . Some people were trying to be sure that it was useful, that art could be like a tool or had a place. For me it wasn’t a problem. . . . the earliest art of human beings was figurative and abstract. Period. So there was never a time that human beings didn’t deal with both modes. To conceive of something from the world you experience, and then create or recreate based on it, is an abstract process anyway.”