Hawkins Bolden

Tops Gallery at Madison Avenue Park

151 Madison Avenue

Memphis, TN 38103

On view 24 hours a day

Tops is pleased to present Hawkins Bolden at the Madison Avenue Park exhibition space.

Hawkins Bolden (1914-2005) lived his entire life in Memphis. He lost his sight after an accident when he was seven years old and began making his scarecrow pieces in the mid 1960's. Bolden created these pieces from whatever discarded materials he could find in the alleys and streets around his midtown home. Old pans, cans, hubcaps, toys, clothes, or furniture are held together with pieces of rubber or hose or extension cords. The soles of discarded shoes become the tongues for his figures and masks while the many holes he hewed into his works serve as eyes.

Bolden's work is included in the collections of The Smithsonian American Art Museum, High Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and John Michael Kohler Arts Center among others.