Oxford's bronzes part III

Rod Moorhead

From the David Perry Smith Gallery website: Moorehead’s work ranges from small clay figures to large bronzes. He began his career as a potter, and still loves clay. In 1993 he started Southside Gallery in Oxford and was co-owner until 1997. Among his public commissions are Concerto, a seventeen foot bronze of a violinist and cellist which stands in front of the Gertrude Ford Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Mississippi, and a life size sculpture of James Meredith for the Civil Rights Memorial also at the University of Mississippi. Two bronzes for Mississippi State University will be installed this year, and he is currently working on the Storytellers—ten foot high limestone figures of the Mississippi writers, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty and Richard Wright. The sculpture will be placed on Capitol Street in Jackson, MS.   He has work in the Roger Ogden Collection in New Orleans, and the collection of the actor, Morgan Freeman, among others. He has twice received Mississippi Arts Commission grants. His sculpture can be found in galleries across the South.

Take a virtual tour of Rod Moorhead's studio.

2000 Chapel Figure

2003 Concerto

2006 James Meredith

Rod Moorhead's sculptures are the most visible and stunning art pieces on the University of Mississippi campus. Collectively they bring to mind important aspects of the state's legacy: religion, music, and civil rights. According to a Pew Study, Mississippi is the most religious state in the nation and it is widely considered the heart of the Civil Rights Movement as well as the birthplace of the blues.