Lonnie B. Holley

American, born 1950

BiographyLonnie Holley is an artist, art educator, and musician best known for his assemblages and immersive environments made of found materials. He was born the 7th of 27 children during the Jim Crow era. Holley began his artistic life in 1979 by carving tombstones for his sister's two children, who died in a house fire. He used blocks of a soft sandstone-like byproduct of metal-casting, which was discarded in piles by a foundry near his sister's house. He believes that divine intervention led him to the material and inspired his artwork. Inspired to create, Holley made other carvings and assembled them in his yard along with various found objects.

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Lonnie Holley is an artist, art educator, and musician best known for his sculpture and assemblages made of found materials. He was born the 7th of 27 children during the Jim Crow era in Birmingham, AL. Holley began his artistic life in 1979 by carving tombstones for his sister's two children, who died in a house fire. He used blocks of a soft sandstone-like byproduct of metal-casting, which was discarded in piles by a foundry near his sister's house. He believes that divine intervention led him to the material and inspired his artwork. Inspired to create, Holley made other carvings and assembled them in his yard along with various found objects.

The artist's bio reads, "Since 1979, Holley has devoted his life to the practice of improvisational creativity. His art and music, born out of struggle, hardship, but perhaps more importantly, out of furious curiosity and biological necessity, has manifested itself in drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, performance, and sound. Holley’s sculptures are constructed from found materials in the oldest tradition of African American sculpture. Objects, already imbued with cultural and artistic metaphor, are combined into narrative sculptures that commemorate places, people, and events. His work is now in collections of major museums throughout the country, on permanent display in the United Nations, and been displayed in the White House Rose Garden. In January of 2014, Holley completed a one-month artist-in-residence with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in Captiva Island, Florida, site of the acclaimed artist’s studio."

In addition to his renown as a prolific and successful musician, Holley's artwork has been displayed and acquired by major institutions including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the American Folk Art Museum, the High Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the VMFA, among many others, and had been featured in landmark exhibitions including Outliers and American Vanguard Art at the National Gallery of Art.

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