Rebuilding, 1991
Carved and Burned Magnolia Wood, 36" x 29" x 29"
James Surls was born in Terrel, Texas, in 1943. He holds a B.S. from Sam Houston State College in Huntsville, Texas. He studied with Julius Schmidt at Cranbook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where he received an M.F.A. in 1969. Since catching the eye of the art world in the 1970s with his tree-creature sculptures that combined folk-art traditions with surrealist overtones, Surls has become recognized as a leading contemporary sculptor and has had numerous museum exhibitions throughout the United States. He received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1979 and was honored as the Texas Artist of the Year in 1991. His work can be found in the collections of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, the Seattle Art Museum, Washington, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Dallas Museum of Art, Texas. Manipulating various native woods with hand and power tools, Surls creates fetishistic, anthropomorphizing imagery that celebrates the force of nature and is inspired in part by Southwest Native American and Mexican cultures. He also has collaborated with poet Robert Creeley on a series of prints that combines poems and images.
*Excerpted from Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc.