In 1960 Melvin Edwards shifted his artistic practice from abstract painting to sculpture. Three years later,
he began Lynch Fragments, a series of welded steel assemblages made in response to the tumultuous social climate of the Civil Rights movement. Edwards addressed African American identity within an abstract sculptural language. Afrophoenix No. 1, one of the earliest objects from the series, exemplifies how the artist physically transformed found objects and brought them together in poetically suggestive, tension-filled compositions. Here the formal arrangement of steel elements evokes an equestrian bridle and bit. Chains, hammers, nails, spikes, and screws magnify the sculpture’s associative power, recalling implements of labor and torture. At the same time, the title references the mythological phoenix—alluding to death, rebirth, and transformation. Suggesting a range of meanings, the work demonstrates Edwards’s desire to fuse abstraction with personal and collective histories.