Woodcarver, preacher, barber, African-American, and storyteller, all these aspects of Elijah Pierce’s identity come to the fore in the exhibition Elijah Pierce’s America, on view at the Barnes through January 10, 2021. We get a view of America through Pierce’s eyes, through parables of contemporary politics and depictions of culture figures from girl scouts to Leroy Brown (of the popular Jim Croce song). Pierce was born on a farm in Mississippi in 1892. He tried a few vocations and homes before settling in Columbus, Ohio in 1923 with his second wife. Living to be 92 years old, Pierce created vibrant woodcarvings with complex narratives over the course of his long life, often enlivening the brightly painted scenes further with glitter.
Beginning in the 1930s, settled into his barbershop practice in Columbus, Ohio, Pierce focused his serious carving work on religious scenes. He still made smaller works, like tiny animals, for his wife, friends, and neighbors. But his religious scenes became an extension of his ministry. This became all the more true when the Great Depression hit, and his wife encouraged him to make the The Book of Wood (1932), carved pages set on a hinge that Pierce preached from as the couple toured the United States. Pierce thought it was the “dumbest thing” he had ever heard when his wife first suggested it. However, it proved a popular extension of his preaching. Crucifixion (pictured above) is also a “sermon in wood,” begun in the 1930s and touched up and tinkered with many decades later. This complex scene echoes the traditional Biblical depictions of Christ on the cross flanked by two other crucifixions and surrounded by Roman soldiers in bright silver helmets. Pierce places a devil with horns and a pitchfork at the base of Jesus’s cross, ruling a red landscape. High in the blue sky are a dark sun and a bright silver moon, with a red tear coming from its eye. The moon’s bottom arc bleeds down into the cross in an expression of pathos. This is indeed a functional iconography, meant to be read like a book.
Parable comes out in regards to contemporary politics as well, as one sees in Peace with Honor. Pictured are two politicians shaking hands at the center of the canvas. Behind their backs both hold weapons and little red devils. 1973, the year of this piece, was the year that the Paris Peace accords were signed to end the Vietnam War (five years after Richard Nixon’s 1968 campaign promise to get the U.S. out of Vietnam). This contemporary political commentary suggests Pierce’s distrust of politicians and his concern over how nations that stockpiled weapons could ever find peace.
Pierce also told personal stories in wood, like the multi-scene tableaux Elijah Escapes the Mob, carved in the 1950s as the artist. In it, Pierce recalls a terrifying ordeal he had as a young man. Here in the top left, a crowd of men and a dog corner a figure in a red baseball cap with his hands up. Pierce played baseball when he was young, and once he travelled to a neighboring town for a game. There he was mistakenly identified as the murderer of a recently killed white man. In the next scene, we see Pierce arrested and jailed under the eye of God. When a witness testified to his innocence, the sheriff advised Pierce to run home by the backroads to escape further trouble. The final scenes of the panel show an innocent Pierce running to freedom. This story speaks to the fraught social landscape Pierce had to navigate as a Black man to survive and build a life for himself, and how such experience stuck with him many years later.
For all these weighty concerns, the notable tenor of this exhibition is joy. The vivid carvings brim with life. Assemblages like the above, which hung in Pierce’s home, show off his skill as a woodcarver and his desire to weave together different pieces into a harmonious whole. The carved plaque on the middle left shelf reads: JOY. Figures like the angel pictured below, with resplendent glittered wings and easily balanced on one leg with a serene expression, speak to the delight Pierce found and continued to find in carving, whether animals, angels, politicians, or frames. There is a lesson for us today, both in how the humble woodcarving fits neatly into our understanding of modern art, bumping up alongside genres of Pop and craft, but also in the perspective of an African-American artist who lived through a period of great social change and expressed scenes of Black love, faith, joy, and national pride across the course of his long life.
