Thaddeus Mosley
Thaddeus Mosley (b. 1926, New Castle, PA) is a Pittsburgh-based self-taught artist whose monumental sculptures are crafted with the felled trees of Pittsburgh’s urban canopy, via the city’s Forestry Division; wood from local sawmills; and reclaimed building materials. Using only a mallet and chisel, he reworks salvaged timber into biomorphic forms. With influences ranging from Isamu Noguchi to Constantin Brâncuși—and the Bamum, Dogon, Baoulé, Senufo, Dan, and Mossi works of his personal collection—Mosley’s sculptures mark an inflection point in the history of American abstraction. These “sculptural improvisations,” as he calls them, take cues from the mod-ernist traditions of jazz. “The only way you can really achieve something is if you’re not working so much from a pattern,” Mosley says of his improvisational method. “That’s also the essence of good jazz.” Mosley had his first Karma solo exhibition in 2020, and was commissioned for the 2020 edition of Frieze Sculpture at Rockefeller Center, New York.
His work has been exhibited and acquired by major museums and foundations since 1959, including the Mattress Factory Museum, Pittsburgh, and most recently, the Carnegie Museum of Art, for the occasion of the 57th Edition Carnegie International (2018). His work is held in public collections including the Art Institute of Chicago; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Brooklyn Museum, New York; and Colby College, Waterville, Maine.
Mosley’s work is currently on view in downtown Milwaukee in there is this We, a group installation organized by Sculpture Milwaukee, curated by Theaster Gates and Michelle Grabner. His work is currently on display in Thaddeus Mosley: Forest at the Baltimore Museum of Art.
Born 1926, New Castle, Pennsylvania
Lives and works in Pittsburgh
EDUCATION
1950
BA, English and Journalism, University of Pittsburgh
Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions
2021
Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland, Forest
2020
Karma, New York
2014
CUE Art Foundation, New York
2011
Paul Mesaros Gallery, Morgantown, West Virginia
2010
August Wilson Center, Pittsburgh, Sculptures by Thaddeus G. Mosley
2009
The Mattress Factory Museum, Pittsburgh, Thaddeus Mosley: Sculpture (Studio/Home)
2004
CUE Art Foundation, New York
2002
Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pittsburgh, Thaddeus Mosley
1997
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Recent Sculpture by Thaddeus Mosley
1995
Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, Pittsburgh
1990
Three Rivers Arts Festival, Pittsburgh
1979
Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pittsburgh, Artist of the Year
1968
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Selected Group Exhibitions
2022
Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen, Norway, File Under Freedom (forthcoming)
2021
Maximillian William, London, Embodying Anew
Grimm Gallery, Amsterdam, Romancing the Surface, curated by Loie Hollowell
2020
Friedman Benda, New York, Comfort, curated by Omar Sosa
2018
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Carnegie International
Featherstone Center for the Arts, Massachusetts, The Beautiful Difference
2017
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, 20/20: The Studio Museum in Harlem and Carnegie Museum of Art
2016
Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pittsburgh, Society of Sculptors 80th Anniversary Annual Exhibition
2015
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Uncrated: The Hidden Lives of Artworks
University Art Gallery at the University of Pittsburgh, Exposure: Black Voices in the Arts
2010
African American Cultural Center of Greater Pittsburgh, Generations: Six African American Artists
2008
National Academy of Design, New York, 183rd Annual: Am Innovational Exhibition of Contemporary American Art
Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, In Search of Missing Masters: The Lewis Tanner Moore Collection of African American Art
2007
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Popular Salon of the People: Associated Artists of Pittsburgh Annuals, 1910-2006
1975
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, 66th Annual Exhibition of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh
1959
Three Rivers Arts Festival, Pittsburgh
Selected Public Projects and Installations
2021
Harvard Business School, Boston
Sculpture Milwaukee, there is this We, curated by Theaster Gates and Michelle Grabner
Urban Redevelopment Authority, East Bond Plaza, Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, Dollar Bank Three Rivers Arts Festival, EQT Plaza, Pittsburgh
2020
Frieze Sculpture, Rockefeller Center, New York, curated by Brett Littman
2006
Cities of Asylum, Pittsburgh, Winged House
Public Collections
Art Institute of Chicago
High Museum of Art, Atlanta
Brooklyn Museum, New York
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Colby College Museum, Waterville, Maine
Martin Luther King Jr. Library, Pittsburgh
Mattress Factory Museum, Pittsburgh
David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Pittsburgh
The August Wilson African American Center, Pittsburgh
Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg, Pennsylvania
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Awards
American Academy of Arts and Letters Awards in Art
Governor’s Award for Artist of the Year, Pennsylvania Visual Arts
Cultural Award, Pittsburgh Center of the Arts
Service in the Arts Award, Pittsburgh Center of the Arts
2021 History Makers Award, Senator John Heinz History Center
Publications
2020
Thaddeus Mosley
Texts by Ingrid Schaffner, Sam Gilliam, Brett Littman, Jessica Bell Brown, Ed Roberson, Connie H. Choi, and an interview by Hans Ulrich Obrist
Karma, New York
312 pages, hardcover
7 1/2 × 9 1/4 inches
1997
Thaddeus Mosley: African-American Sculptor
Narrative by David Lewis
University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh
86 pages, soft cover
8 × 10 inches
