Alabama native William Dawson moved to Chicago as a young man and worked in the produce industry. He is known for his three-dimensional wood carvings as well as paintings on wood and paper. Dawson’s work was featured in the groundbreaking show, Black Folk Art in America: 1930–1980, at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC in 1983, as well as several other exhibitions and publications.
At first, Dawson simply whittled pieces of scrap wood he found in alleys or on the street. He then added such materials as chicken bones and driftwood to his compositions. His most frequent early carvings were totem pole stacks of faces, but he later became an active painter as well. Dawson’s work is now in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, the American Folk Art Museum in New York City, and other esteemed institutions.
