The story of sculptor Alice Ivory is a story of triumph against adversity, and the power of the creative drive. It is also an American tragedy of sorts, highlighting the dearth of opportunities afforded people outside the white, predominantly male, status quo. In “Beyond Boundaries: The Sculpture of Alice Wesley Ivory,” the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center highlights the work and life story of the under-celebrated artist.
Ivory was born in Albemarle County in 1931. From the start, she faced challenges as a poor, Black female in segregated Virginia. But Ivory had a few things going for her. Her parents, Warner Wesley and Gladys Frye Wesley, owned their own farm in White Hall, and though neither one had attended school, they were literate.
As a child, Ivory attended White Hall Colored School, a two-mile walk each day. She completed her secondary education at Albemarle Training School on Hydraulic Road—at the time, it was the only school in the surrounding five-county area to offer Black kids an education beyond the seventh grade. Ivory went on to Virginia State College (now University) in Petersburg, where she earned a degree in art education. She taught at Jackson P. Burley High School for seven years before applying to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. (The University of Virginia was out of the question, as it was still segregated.)
Accepted provisionally at first because her undergraduate degree was from a Southern Black institution, Ivory satisfied UWM’s requirements, gained full admission, and received her M.S. in art education in 1962. It was at UWM that she discovered her lifelong passion for welding, a highly unusual choice for a woman at the time. Her interest was not lost on Fred Ivory, who presented his bride with an oxo-acetylene torch when they married. She would use that equipment for the rest of her life. In 1970, she became the first Black teacher hired by the Blue Ridge School, and taught there until retiring in 1990.
Ivory received some artistic acclaim during her lifetime, garnering certificates of distinction from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts for her sculptures “Crow,” “Wild Boar,” and “Eagle”—the latter created in response to JFK’s assassination. She was also the subject of a one-woman show at the VMFA, which also subsequently commissioned “Kangaroo” for its 1980 “Fantasies,” a touchable exhibition designed for people with visual impairments. Ivory’s work has been exhibited at McGuffey Art Center, and a painted portrait of Ivory by Frances Brand was part of the “Firsts” exhibition. But these acknowledgments are not commensurate with her talent.
The sensitivity, compassion, and humor with which Ivory’s animals and insects are rendered reflect her rural upbringing. Michael R. Taylor, artistic director and chief curator at the VMFA has an interesting take on her work.
“In a way, Alice Ivory’s marvelous welded metal sculptures are all self-portraits,” says Taylor. “She’s in them. She is the fierce junkyard dog, she is the beautiful crow, and she‘s the kangaroo protecting her young. I think that’s all of her rolled into one.”
Ivory used both naturalism and caricature to capture her subjects. Her chickens possess a hand-wrought honesty and humor reminiscent of some of Alexander Calder’s animals. Even though they are abstracted versions, Ivory nails the posture, stance, and movement—in essence, their chickenness.
Generally, she didn’t bother with surface details, placing emphasis on form and gesture. In a very modern way, Ivory acknowledged the materiality of the work, with unadorned metal and exposed welding seams and brazing marks. Other animals in this vein are the attenuated Alberto Giacometti-like “Heron” and the menacing, yet funny, piranha whose teeth are made from nails.
Ivory’s “Bull’ is a study of compressed energy. The bull seems to be gathering itself in preparation for charging. To emphasize the animal’s power, she exaggerates the hooves, attaches the plates of metal so the seams accentuate the animal’s musculature and adds a tail that seems charged with electricity. Her magnificent, oversized “Crow” gets the bird’s attitude exactly right, with a cocked head that conveys curiosity and intelligence.
The majority of Ivory’s sculptures were made (using scrap metal her husband collected for her) between 1960 and 1970, while she was taking a break from teaching to care for her two young children. It wasn’t easy, as Ivory herself wrote: “…other sculptures have been made at home when I had managed to get the baby quiet, the dishes washed, the laundry hung out to dry and another of hundreds of huge meals prepared.”
In spite of these domestic burdens, she produced, by her estimation, 100 sculptures. By way of comparison, American sculptor David Smith, who died 10 years younger than Ivory, produced well over 500 sculptures.
Ivory made the best of it, producing extraordinarily sympathetic work. She unquestionably had the talent to scale the heights of the art world, yet she lived out her days in relative obscurity, raising children, keeping house, and supporting herself as an art teacher. When she died in 1991, Ivory left behind a body of superlative work that speaks not only to what she achieved but also to how she triumphed in a world of exclusion. Looking at it, one can’t help but feel that she, and (to a far lesser degree) we, were cheated out of a more fully realized career.