An African American Artist and the Women Who Inspired Him
Last week I showed you two of the 80 copper relief panels in the Grand Reading Room of the Nashville Public Library and mentioned the artist Gregory Ridley who created them. Gregory Ridley was an African American born in Smyrna, Tennessee, in 1925. His father, Gregory D. L. Ridley Sr., was a minister; his mother, Lucile Elder Ridley, was a crafts artist who also made quilts. She also worked as a domestic. When Gregory was a child, his mother took him with her when she displayed her creations.
The Ridley family moved to Nashville when Gregory was 11 years old. Ridley graduated from Pearl High School in 1944 and entered the U.S. Navy, serving in World War II. After the war, he studied art at Fisk University, graduating in 1949. He earned a bachelor’s degree in art education from Tennessee State University in 1951 and a master’s degree in fine arts from the University of Louisville in 1955.
Ridley had a long career as an artist who also taught at various colleges and universities. He had a great interest in history. When he completed these 80 copper relief panels, entitled A Story of Nashville, the artist was 75 years old. The project had taken him two years.
Ridley’s 80 reliefs are displayed in 16 alcoves with five panels each. Alcove 3 pictures the story of Nashville becoming a town. This is Panel 2 in Alcove 3:
Panel 2 depicts early businesses and industries on Nashville’s public square. These included a gristmill, a church, a distillery, and a hotel. In this relief, Ridley featured a tavern and rooming house owned by a free black named Robert Renfro. When the librarian Liz was helping me during my visit to the library, she told me that since Gregory Ridley did not have a picture or painting of Robert Renfro, he painted himself to represent the tavern owner.
When Gregory Ridley passed away at 78 years of age, just three years after the opening of the Nashville Public Library, he left behind his wife of 44 years, a son, five daughters, five grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.
A few months before his death, the Nashville Public Library hosted an exhibition of Ridley’s art, entitled “From the Hands of a Master.” Ridley dedicated the exhibition to his wife with this tribute:
This exhibition is dedicated to my beautiful wife Gloria Louise Brooks Ridley, who has been an inspiration to me and to many other artists, a knowing collector of our art, and a strong nurturer of the creative spirit.*
Every person who succeeds in any endeavor needs people who support him or her in numberless ways. Gregory Ridley had at least three of these in his life: Harlem Renaissance artist and Fisk professor of art Aaron Douglas and the two women who loved Ridley best: his mama and his wife.
You have a powerful opportunity for good in the lives of your husband and children.
Her children rise up and bless her;
Her husband also, and he praises her, saying:
“Many daughters have done nobly,
But you excel them all.”
Proverbs 31:28-29
*As quoted by Reavis L. Mitchell Jr. in “Profiles of African Americans in Tennessee,” a project of the 2006 Nashville Conference on African-American History and Culture.
Quite an interesting artist. So good to read that his art endures. I hope to visit the library some day. Perhaps with my granddaughter who is an aspiring artist herself.
I highly recommend it. The wall murals in the staircase to and lobby area adjacent to the Grand Reading Room are really good, too. I don’t know who created those.