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Rare - Miles Burkholder Carpenter - VA Folk Art Carving
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Rare - Miles Burkholder Carpenter - VA Folk Art Carving
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Miles Burkholder Carpenter, Rare Folk Art Bird Tree Signed & Dated His work rarely comes up for sale and can only be found in many major museum collections. This is an unusual work and rare given that both birds are mounted on small springs and therefore can move with a breeze. Generally, all of his works are stationary. This would make a great Christmas gift item for any Southern Folk Art collector or museum. Miles B. Carpenter (American, born 1889 at Brownstown, Pennsylvania - dead 1985, at Petersburg, Virginia) Folk Art Bird Tree, 1980, polychromed carved wood, 10 inches (height), signed and dated . Provenance: The Betty Gordon Estate.The Miles B. Carpenter House, a two-story frame dwelling built in 1890, is located at the intersection of Hunter Street and U.S. Route 460 in Waverly, Sussex County, Virginia. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 13, 1989. In 1912 the home was purchased by Miles B. Carpenter, owner of a local sawmill, planing mill, and ice delivery business, who became a noted American folk artist. A photo of the house can be viewed at this referenced website. Since Carpenter’s death in 1985, his house has been preserved as a museum in which are displayed his tools and carvings and as a gallery to encourage and exhibit the work of young artists in the region. "You may know your business, but no one else will, if you don't advertise." Miles Carpenter's successful lumber and ice business, active after 1912, needed little promotion, and his first small carvings of animals and figures, made during the early 1940s, were essentially pastimes. After retiring in 1955, the industrious Carpenter opened a roadside store offering ice, soda pop, and vegetables. In 1960 he began carving trade signs for the new business. After his wife's death in 1966,Carpenter devoted himself to a third career—carving sculptures. Many he called "advertisements"; others were benevolent interpretations of contemporary history and human nature. Still others were meant to entertain children and adults alike, and some were decorative pieces. All reflect his astute grasp of an audience, his unerring ability to extract forms from wood, and his delight in tinkering with materials at hand. After 1966 Carpenter carved figures and animals that he displayed in the flatbed of his pickup truck, which he strategically parked next to his roadside stand or drove throughthe community. Indian Woman [SAAM 1986.65.235] was one of the first "advertisements." Although her wardrobe changed over the years, she has always worn the clothing of Carpenter's late wife. A male Indian figure and a boy were among her companions in the truck and, locally, the trio was considered a portrait of Carpenter's family. … Carpenter was discovered by the contemporary art world in 1972. As carvings in the truck sold, he substituted new works, often the watermelon slices, "monkey dogs," "root monsters," and small farm animals that became the staple of Carpenter's repertoire. Lynda Roscoe Hartigan Made with Passion: The Hemphill Folk Art Collection in the National Museum of American Art (Washington, D.C. and London: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990) Although he began making small carvings in the 1940s, Carpenter dedicated himself more seriously to his art in the 1960s, first in entrepreneurial spirit, to create sly signage for his store, and then in profound sadness, following his wife’s death in 1966. Many of his pieces stood in the flatbed of his truck next to his store (a building that still stands as a museum in honor of the artist and in celebration of peanuts, the most famous local crop). His subjects range from signature watermelon wedges to farm animals and fantastic creatures to portraits of family members and “Indians” to appropriated advertising and pop cultural imagery. Always evident in his artwork is the playful sense of humor that likewise suffuses his 1982 autobiography Cutting the Mustard. Carpenter’s sculptures came to the attention of the mainstrea... 
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