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Takawira - J

Melvin Edwards

Contemporary Art

Melvin Edwards’s weighty sculptures combine nails, tools, gears, and other metal objects to create abstract compositions. This work belongs to his extensive series Lynch Fragments, begun in the 1960s and inspired by Ralph Ginzburg’s 100 Years of Lynching (1962), a collection of newspaper reports of lynchings that was published to commemorate the centennial of the Civil War. The Lynch Fragments sculptures, generally shown suspended at eye level, evoke this history of violence through their jarring forms and rough welding.
MEDIUM Welded steel
DATES 1989
DIMENSIONS 14 x 10 x 9 in.  (show scale)
COLLECTIONS Contemporary Art
ACCESSION NUMBER 1990.104
CREDIT LINE Gift of Edward A. Bragaline, by exchange
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
CAPTION Melvin Edwards (American, born 1937). Takawira - J, 1989. Welded steel, 14 x 10 x 9 in. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Edward A. Bragaline, by exchange, 1990.104. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 1990.104_edited_PS9.jpg)
IMAGE overall, 1990.104_edited_PS9.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2017
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RIGHTS STATEMENT © artist or artist's estate
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