Two Frontiers: The Sculpture of Ed Dwight

Outer Space to Creative Space

Ed Dwight is a man who has worn many hats over his lifetime. Real estate and construction entrepreneur, restaurateur, engineer, marketing representative, Air Force test pilot, the first Black astronaut trainee, and—perhaps most importantly—sculptor and educator. February is Black History Month, an opportunity to reflect on the 400 years of Black history in North America. Dwight helped desegregate an industry that had promised to be forward-looking and empowered men and women of color by drawing connections to their important role in the turn of the 20^th century American West. In this post we look at the life and sculpture of the artist through the lens of Eight is Enough, a bronze he donated to the Bowers Museum in 1981.

Early Years and Space Careers

Edward Joseph Dwight was born in Kansas City, Kansas in 1933. Throughout much of the 20^th century, Kansas City was segregated, and Dwight grew up facing adversity and racism daily. As a child he was drawn to planes and building. By the age of four, he had already built himself a toy airplane out of cardboard. It was not until he was much older and saw Dayton Ragland, a Black pilot serving in the Air Force, on the front page of the local paper that he realized a career flying planes was a possibility for a man of color. In 1953 he joined the Air Force himself. After training for a few years, he finally got his certifications for flying around the same time he finished a degree in aeronautical engineering. He flew as an Air Force test pilot for several years.

Near Stardom

In the 1960s President John F. Kennedy inspired the nation to look to the stars for the first time. With the Space Race underway, Kennedy wanted to find a qualified and diverse face for the U.S. Space Program. After looking at several candidates Dwight garnered national attention after getting through to the second phase of the Aerospace Research Pilot School. His face covered magazines, and at one point he was receiving up to 1,500 letters a day. However, NASA's 1963 selection panel did not choose Dwight. There may have been several causes, his press and media commitments kept him too busy to do the training that he needed to do and he alleged that he faced discrimination from the upper echelons of the program. Whatever the case, Dwight’s dreams of being the first Black man in space were dashed then dashed again later that year when Kennedy’s assassination effectively put an end to the pressure that NASA was receiving to have a Black astronaut. Dwight finished out his term in the Air Force in 1966.

Moonlighting

Once more a civilian, Dwight began working at IBM as a marketing representative. Early in his time there he was tasked with finding some metal wall hanging for the entrance of their Denver building, and unable to find anything that met the bill, picked up a welding torch and made something himself. It is not often that people are blessed with being able to follow two dreams, but Dwight was able to do so. While still working at IBM, he attended the University of Fine Arts and received a master’s degree in sculpture there. His real spark of inspiration came when he was commissioned to sculpt Colorado’s first Black lieutenant governor, George L. Brown. Inspired by recording a small piece of Black history through sculpture, he expanded his series to include seven more works. By the time he left IBM in 1976 he was making more money each year with his sculptures than he was making with his day job.

Great in Enough

The pièce de résistance of his artistic career was a series of 28 sculptures titled, “Black Frontier Spirit.” As his love of history grew over time, so did his love of the role of Blacks in the American West. Dwight took what bronze sculptors of the American West like Frederic Remington had done before him and began telling new narratives in which Black men were the actors. The title of this work is Eight is Enough. Bronc riding is an event that requires the rider to stay on a bucking horse for at least eight seconds. This sculpture shows two Black riders, one having narrowly survived a painstaking eight seconds and the other a lifeline to his distressed partner. Dwight also held on for dear life when forces larger than him tried to buck him loose. Though the first Black astronaut trainee never made it to space, Ed Dwight had done more than enough in terms of desegregating the frontier of tomorrow and recording the roles of Blacks in the history of the frontier.

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