$29,900
Carved Walnut Lady Liberty Figure, America, attributed to Edgar Alexander McKillop (1879-1950), Balfour, North Carolina, the eyes of pearly beads, with stand, ht. 30, wd. 6 1/4, dp. 7 1/2 in. N.B. McKillop lived his entire life in western North Carolina and worked as a logger, cooper, machinist, blacksmith, and jack-of-all-trades. A self-taught artist, McKillop produced the majority of his walnut sculptures in a ten-year period after 1926, when a neighbor offered lumber. McKillop's works, produced with hammer, chisel, and sandpaper, range from small woodland creatures sculpted from observation, to African wildlife, snakes, and dragons, to patriotic carvings such as this Liberty figure. McKillop's sculptures are in the Henry Ford Museum and the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Williamsburg, Virginia. The patriotic figural group from the Ford museum is pictured in Robert Bishop's AMERICAN FOLK SCULPTURE, (New York, 1983), p. 334, fig. 619. A copy of E.A. MCKILLOP A BORN CARVING MAN; FIVE NORTH CAROLINA FOLK ARTISTS, by Charles G. Zug III, is provided with the lot. Provenance: Aarne Anton/American Primitive Gallery.
Auctioneer:
Skinner
Date:
2001-02-25
