Edgar Tolson

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Edgar Tolson (1904-1984) was a woodcarver from Kentucky who became a well-known folk artist.

He was born in Trent Fork, Wolfe County as the fourth of eleven children and educated through the sixth grade. He worked as a carpenter and stonemason and was married twice, fathering eighteen children in all. From his youth, woodcarving was always a hobby of his. Although Tolson began working in the tradition of the Appalachian woodcarvers before him, after suffering a stroke in 1957, he became a full-time woodcarver and artist, and his subject matter grew increasingly idiosyncratic.

Tolson first came to national attention through the Grassroots Craftsmen, an initiative of Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty that helped Appalachian craftspeople to sell their works. Ralph Reinzer of the Smithsonian Institution was impressed by Tolson's figures, and included them in the 1971 Festival of American Folklife. University of Kentucky professor Michael Hall also became Tolson's primary dealer at this time, and his work was included in the 1973 Whitney Biennial.

Tolson is best known for his "Fall of Man" cycle, a series of carvings portraying the story of Adam and Eve.