Ulysses Davis (1913-1990) was a self-taught African-American sculptor and barber from Fitzgerald, Georgia, who became best known for his intricate wood carvings.

Life and Work:

Born on January 13, 1913, to Mary and Malachi Davis, he was the fourth of five children. Davis left school after the fourth grade to work as a railroad blacksmith's assistant, a skill that later influenced his artistic tool-making. He began whittling wood as a child. In 1942, he moved his family to Savannah, Georgia, where he resided for 48 years with his wife, Elizabeth, raising six sons and three daughters. After being laid off from the railroad in the 1950s, he opened the Ulysses Barber Shop near Bull and 45th Street in Savannah.

Davis transformed his barbershop into a personal art gallery, where he displayed his wood carvings and engaged with customers about art. He primarily created his sculptures, busts, canes, and portraits freehand, starting with a hatchet or band saw and refining them with chisels and knives. He ingeniously designed many of his own tools, utilizing his blacksmithing background, and even incorporated barber scissors for textural detail. His works were often adorned with shoe polish, rhinestones, and beads. Davis held his creations in high regard, considering them deeply personal and a part of himself, stating, "These things are very dear to me. They're a part of me. They're my treasure. If I sold these, I'd be really poor."

He worked with various woods, including mahogany, cedar, and poplar, sometimes acquired from longshoremen friends or lumberyards. While he rarely made preliminary drawings, his process involved reducing the wood mass before refining it. Some pieces were painted, stained, or rubbed with black shoe polish, and embellished with rhinestones and pearl beads. He also used self-designed metal punches and stamps to create textures, as seen in his serpentine sculptures like "Beast With Wings" and "Created Beast With Many Heads." Over his lifetime, Davis produced more than three hundred pieces, including carved figures, furniture, and reliefs, often using unique materials like shipyard lumber. He also uniquely utilized the blade of his hair clippers for textural details.

Though renowned for his historical figures, such as mahogany busts of U.S. presidents and portraits of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Davis's diverse body of work also included biblical figures, realistic animals, fanciful African tribal leaders, and dragon-like beasts. His approach to African American art synthesized motifs from across the continent, such as his "Makonde," a version of the "Tree of Life" with a Janus-like divinity from Yoruba cosmology. He also drew inspiration from popular representations of Africans, basing some sculptures on illustrations from a 1970s Anheuser-Busch promotional calendar. Beyond African themes, he created works featuring a potbellied Buddha and an armless figure resembling Himalayan masks called "Red Lips." His most intricate works were "twinklets," tiered boxes adorned with beads and crystals, and he also crafted functional pieces like canes and tables. His final and largest creation was "The Garden of Eden," depicting Adam and Eve nestled between table legs, with a grinning serpent rising from the tabletop.

Explore more of Ulysses Davis’ process with the following interview by Judith McWillie, courtesy of the Digital Library of Georgia

Athens, Georgia 1986 February 8
Digital Library of Georgia
McWillie, Judith, Interviewer | ugabma_gfc_gfc-2070
Georgia Folklore Collection

'Different Roots, Common Fruits' Sculpture Exhibit To Open Friday

By SANDI McDANIEL Features Writer

Savannah News-Press Sunday, June 24, 1990 pg. 4E

Outside, the sun beats loudly down, but in the cool of Haywood Nichols' messy, westside studio, he and Ulysses Davis are quietly at work, each absorbed in his own creation.

The two men are wood sculptors though Davis prefers to be called a whittler.

In the studio, Nichols chips and shaves away at a striking six-foot nude. His strokes are bold and strong. Davis' movements are briefer, more intricate as he etches a row of angular flowers.

A work lamp washes light over both men's hands and work. Beyond this pool of brightness, the dim studio spills out like an artist's unkempt mind. Crates are stacked among papers, wood chips, racks of carving tools, saws and shelves. Nichols' old hat and sweater hang on the door.

Were they not impaled on a pegged stand, a row of figures in clay might dance mischievously among the disorder.

The two men often sit and talk together in Nichols' rented ware-house. For here, on the outskirts of town, they are isolated from anything that does not speak of or reflect their art.

Artistic immersion seems key now. Both men are preparing for an upcoming show in conjunction with Independence Day and the City of Savannah's 200th birthday. The show, entitled "Different Roots, Common Fruits," may be viewed at the Gallery in the City Market Art Center beginning Friday and continuing through July 14.

The purpose of the show is to bring together these two local artists from vastly different back-grounds, to accentuate their differences while celebrating the common artistic ground on which they meet.

Nichols, a native Savannahian, has worked as a professional sculptor for 16 years since receiving his Bachelor of Fine Arts in sculpture from the Atlanta College of Art. The bulk of his work is held in private collections throughout the United States. His art has been represented in the Georgia Art Bus Collection, and in the exhibition "Expressions in Wood," at the Rizzoli Gallery and the Omni International complex in Atlanta.

Davis taught himself to carve at the age of 10 and has practiced his art for nearly 70 years. He whittles between customers at his 45th-street barber shop - many of his works can be viewed there. He was honored in 1982 by President and Mrs. Reagan at a preview of a Washington, D.C., show, "Black Folk Art in America: 1930-1980."

Nichols and Davis became friends in 1981 when Davis, after attending one of Nichols' shows, was curious enough about the man to look him up and introduce himself.

The meeting spawned a long and treasured friendship.

The two have talked of doing a show together for at least five years. Now, as it is about to happen.

Nichols is sculpting 12 hours each day, having promised himself he would not end up pushing his deadline to finish his work before "But, that's like saying you're not going to cram for finals," he says. 

Davis just chuckles.

Over the years, the two have developed a kind of mutual inspiration society, in which each takes something from the other in order to increase himself.

Many times, Nichols uses the great tools and saws in his shop to cut down a piece of wood for Davis. Or Davis sometimes eyes one of his friend's cast-off scraps for a work of his own. "It's almost like he takes my scraps and makes them into jewels,” says Nichols. But, counters Davis, the idea to use the cast-offs comes out of the shapes and forms he sees in the wood-shapes created by Nichols. 

Thus, the two styles are often linked, the similarities and contrast in their work intriguing.

"I know I've picked up a lot from Mr. Davis, but I'm not sure what it is," says Nichols. Certainly, he says, his friend's vision "loosens the mind.”

Davis marvels at how his images somehow emerge from the wood on their own.

"They ask me where I got my training," he says. "Where did the first wood carvers get their training? I know where they got it. God put it in their heads."

Nichols works a bit more traditionally than his friend, drawing and calculating, removing wood in chunks from the figure that will be. But he also speaks of a sixth sense that controls his bold cuts in the wood. "The radar goes off in your mind, and it instructs you," says Nichols. "You know these things.

The two hope their show together will reflect the richness of diversity in their backgrounds and cultures while forming a bridge between classical and folk-art forms.

“It would be very nice to put these things together,” says Nichols. “It just seems right.”

Davis also is excited.

"When you see all that work together," he says, "then you will see what we've been talking about here.”