Details

Title

Three-faced Man

Artist/Maker

Ulysses Davis (American, 1914–1990)

Date

1940–1985

Medium

Wood

Dimensions

10 3/4 x 3 3/4 x 3 inches

Credit

Gift of Lucinda W. Bunnen

Accession #

2010.174

Location

Currently not on view

Ulysses Davis began carving as a child and continued to create work on the side while barbering for a living as an adult. Davis’s artwork is a paradox in many ways. His sources range from prosaic advertising images to the artist’s extravagant imagination, its moods from whimsical fantasy to solemn dignity, its forms from lavishly ornamental to radically simplified. Yet despite these extremes, it is always recognizable as his. With its skilled carving, refined finish, intricate textures, and keen attention to humorous detail, this delightful carving of a humanoid with three faces exemplifies Davis’s fantasy sculpture.

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