#jesse aaron

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She had tricked him. She had made him leave his old self behind and come into her world, and then before he was really at home in it but too late to go back, she had left him stranded there, like an astronaut wandering about on the moon. Alone.

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Jesse Aaron

By Joanna Grey Talbot

One of Gainesville’s most celebrated artists didn’t begin his career as a sculptor until he was well into his 80s.

Jesse Aaron was born in Lake City in 1887 with African American, European, and Seminole heritage. His parents were farmers Will and Annie Aaron. Jesse was the oldest of twelve children and from a young age was hired out as a field-worker to help his family. By the 1910 census they had moved to the town of Bland, in northwest Alachua County to farm.

After Jesse turned 21 he attended vocational school to become a baker and began serving as a cook on the Seaboard Coastline Railroad. A few years later he met and married Lee Anna, who worked as a teacher.

The Starke railroad depot circa 1915, courtesy of the State Library & Archives of Florida

By the 1920 census Jesse and Lee Anna were living in Starke. They owned their home and he was still working on the railroad. Between 1920 and 1930 they had three children and moved to Gainesville.

Jesse worked as a cook in local hotels and University of Florida fraternity houses. Lee Anna was employed as a maid at the hospital. On the side Jesse also built cabinets and furniture. His love of constructing and creating also helped him to build their house on NW 7th Avenue. Some of Jesse’s earliest carvings were faces on trees that he used to mark the boundary of his property.

Jesse’s career took a major turn in 1968 when his wife, Lee Anna, began losing her sight to cataracts. He wasn’t sure how they were going to afford the surgery she needed but according to him, the following happened early one morning around 3am. He woke up after hearing the Lord say, “Jesse, carve wood!” He immediately went to his workshop that was attached to the house and he carved his first sculpture.

Jesse working on one of his sculptures in December 1976, courtesy of the State Library & Archives of Florida

Pleased with what he was creating he opened a shop in his home to sell the sculptures. Within his first year of carving wood he was able to pay for Lee Anna’s first surgery.

His work quickly caught the eye of people in the art world, including Roy Craven – the first director of the University Gallery at the University of Florida. Craven curated an exhibition of 31 pieces of Jesse’s work at the University Gallery, which opened on October 14, 1970. Most of the sculptures sold within the first hour and a half.

Jesse with one of his many unique sculptures in 1977, courtesy of the State Library & Archives of Florida

Jesse’s wooden sculptures had visual similarities to carvings of several traditional cultures, such as Native American and African. He also enjoyed adding found materials, such as fabric or plastic eyes, to his pieces in order to create what he had envisioned.

Jesse passed away on October 17, 1979, at the age of 92. He and his wife, Lee Anna, are buried in the Fort Call Cemetery in Worthington Springs, Florida.

Untitled (Tree Trunk with Faces) by Jesse Aaron, ca. 1970-1979, wood and mixed media, in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum

In 1982 several of his pieces were included in an exhibition curated by the former Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The exhibition, “Black Folk Art in America 1930-1980,” toured the country. Today you can find his pieces in collections throughout the country at such institutions as the Minneapolis Institute of Art, High Museum of Art, and the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.

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Jesse Aaron, Untitled (Tree Trunk with Faces), ca. 1970 - 1979, wood and mixed media, 43 1⁄4 × 16 3⁄4 × 20 1⁄2 in. (109.9 × 42.5 × 52.1 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Josh Feldstein, 2015.56.1

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Favorite pictures of Josh ass Jesse aaron