Mel Edwards
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Melvin Edwards, born 1937 in Houston, Texas, is an contemporary American sculptor. This eminent African American artist was educated at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles. [1] He is best know for the "Lynch Fragment" series that was created over three periods: 1963 to 1967, 1973, and 1978 to the present. The mostly head-size wall-hung sculptures incorporate found metallic objects such as links of chain, hammers, hoes, hooks, locks, scissors and railroad spikes that evoke the manual labor associated with slavery and oppression.[2] According to the Center for Constitutional Rights, between 1882 and 1968, mobs lynched 4,743 persons in the United States, over 70 percent of them African Americans. .[3]
