We first saw Sulton Rogers’s work at the Dallas Museum of Art in the incredible exhibit Black Art -Ancestral Legacy, 1989. We were struck his work and the work of Bessie Harvey and Derek Webster.
We had just started on our journey a few years previous of finding and visiting folk artists in the South. Mississippi was a new wondrous and mysterious new territory for us.
Sulton’s carvings were haints and have movement and dark humor. We knew we had to meet a man named Sulton who carved these figures.

Sulton Rogers (1922-2003) was born in Mississippi and learned to carve as a child from his Father. He traveled around landing in Syracuse, NY to work for a chemical plant most of his adult life. In the 1980’s he returned to his hometown of Oxford. He spent his remaining years carving, having all kinds of folks visit, and selling his pieces.

We went to Oxford having no idea where he lived. There was a great bookstore downtown where we bought books and asked what they knew about Sulton Rogers. They hooked us up and gave us the tip of asking to see the erotic carvings.

It took a couple of visits before Sulton would show and sell us an of the racier subjects.
We always really enjoyed visiting him. He had a great imagination, enjoyed his carvings and made himself laugh.