William Rhodes

William Rhodes, Woman in Labor. Carved wood, pencil, paint, thread on paper and neon glass, 48" x 26" x 6", 2025. William C. Rhodes, III (born 1966) is a Baltimore-raised, San Francisco-based sculptor and mixed-media artist. His artistic production includes sculpture, assemblage, quilting, collage, painting and drawings, which draw upon African-American, African and folk traditions as well as his background in furniture design. Critics describe his art as committed to craft and meaning, collective memory, and the transmission of lived, often overlooked histories. His recurrent themes of familial relationships, community, resilience and spirituality are rooted in Black experience and humanist values. Juan Ramón López wrote, "Rhodes is a traveler whose work opens portals to the distant past … His carefully gathered layers of heritage are multigenerational memory montages assembled into altars of worship."

Rhodes has exhibited at the Berkeley Art Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) and de Young Museum, as well as craft-oriented museums such as the Museum of Arts and Design (New York), Metal Museum and Lauren Rogers Museum of Art. His art is held in public collections including at the Crocker Art Museum, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Reginald F. Lewis Museum, and Casa de Africa Museum (Havana), among others.

Life and career Rhodes was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1966. During the eventful civil rights era between 1968 and 1978, his father, William C. Rhodes Jr., published The Black Times, a magazine showcasing the contributions of Black performers and activists; exposure to notable community and creative figures at the publication offices, including artist Joyce J. Scott, would inspire Rhodes's later work.

Rhodes attended the Baltimore School for the Arts, studying with the AfriCOBRA artist James Phillips. He completed degrees in furniture design at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia (BA, 1989) and University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (MA, 1994). He co-founded 3.9 Art Collective in 2011, a group of Black art professionals, in response to the city's declining Black population.

Rhodes has had solo exhibitions at the Sanchez Art Center, the Africa Centre, London, Transmission Gallery (Oakland), African American Art and Culture Complex (San Francisco), and San Francisco Public Library, among other venues. He appeared in surveys including the 15th Havana Biennial (2024), "Ashe to Amen" (Museum of Biblical Art, 2013), "Power, Politics, and People" (BMA, 2000), and "Stop Asking" (1999, Museum of Arts and Design).

Work and reception William Rhodes, Womb to Tomb. Carved wood, paint, glass and copper foil, 84" x 48" x 12", 1993. Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture collection Rhodes's key areas of focus have been art furniture beginning in the 1990s, mixed-media sculptural assemblages beginning in the 2000s, and his later quilts. He has also produced drawings and paintings, which he frequently integrates into the other bodies of work. Art writers link his work to artists of the African diaspora who use folk traditions and aesthetics to engage history and its ongoing effects, such as Betye Saar, Renee Stout, Joyce Scott and John Outterbridge. The forms and iconography Rhodes employs reflect diverse cultural, folklore and historical contexts and eras, including such things as Egyptian sarcophagi. The sculptures draw upon the artist's box tradition exemplified by Joseph Cornell and Betye Saar and the altar-like, repurposed-object pieces of John Outterbridge. His imagery often consists of stark black-and-white graphite portraits based in personal experiences that he punctuates with thick red thread evoking blood, womb ties or the stitching of wounds. Rhodes has led other community quilting projects in Key West, Egypt, Cuba, and in South Africa, the Nelson Mandela International Quilt Project. For his 2025 Africa Centre, London, exhibition, Rhodes collaborated with artist and Black Panther Party Minister of Culture Emory Douglas.

Collections and recognition Rhodes's work is held in the collections of the Africa Centre, London, Casa de Africa Museum, Crocker Museum, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, New Bedford Art Museum, Reginald F. Lewis Museum and San Francisco Arts Commission, among others.

He has received awards and grants from the California Arts Council, San Francisco Arts Commission, Alliance for California Traditional Arts, ArtSpan, Awesome Foundation, Center for Cultural Innovation, Southern Exposure, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.