Saver of Soles (Primary Title)
Leslie Garland Bolling, American, 1898 - 1955 (Artist)
Self-taught Virginia sculptor Leslie Bolling gained renown in the 1930s and 1940s for his hand-carved genre figures. Many, like this compelling pair (2006.246 & 44.2.1), feature a lively flickering surface that gives evidence of the artist’s penknife.
Bolling found his themes in the daily activities of friends and neighbors. Cousin-on-Friday is one of seven sculptures from the artist’s Day of the Week series, which pays tribute to the labors of an extended family of women. Most link a domestic chore – such as laundry, mending, or baking – to the day it was traditionally performed. Although this tiny worker is portrayed scrubbing a floor on hands and knees, her mouth is open in song. The humorously titled Saver of Soles presents an industrious cobbler, depicted in such detail that one can see the laces on his wingtip shoes.
Working as a store porter by day and carving his figures at night, Bolling was discovered in the late 1920s by New York tastemaker Carl VanVechten. He soon gained sponsorship of the Harmon Foundation, the first major organization dedicated to the promotion of African American art. In the following decade, his carvings were featured in national art shows and magazines. Although Bolling slipped into obscurity in the final years of his life, he is now included in most major surveys of African American art.
Freeing Art from Wood: The Sculpture of Leslie Garland Bolling. Richmond: The Library of Virginia,
24 July - 21 October 2006
The Eighth Exhibition of the Work of Virginia Artists, ex. cat. (Richmond: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 17, no. 104.
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