Ronald Lockett

1965 - 1998

BiographyThe art of Ronald Lockett (1965–1998) speaks to the universality of the human condition through the lens of lived experience in the American South. Working within the artistic traditions of found materials, he addressed subjects of racial, economic, and political unrest, including the unfulfilled promises of the civil rights movement and environmental degradation.

Born and raised in Bessemer, Alabama, Lockett turned his attention to artmaking full-time in his early twenties. His elder cousin, the artist Thornton Dial (1928–2016), mentored and encouraged him. By the time of his death at age thirty-two from HIV/AIDS-related pneumonia, Lockett had produced more than 350 works. Largely unrecognized in his lifetime, Lockett fits squarely into evolving histories of American art in the late twentieth century. [https://folkartmuseum.org/exhibitions/fever-within-the-art-of-ronald-lockett/, accessed 12/27/2018]

Person TypeIndividual

Terms