Thaddeus Mosley

• Name — Thaddeus Mosley • Born — 23 July 1926 • Birthplace — New Castle, Pennsylvania, U.S. • Died — 6 March 2026 • Place of death — Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S. • Field — Sculpture • Training — BA, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh • Awards — Governor's Award for Artist of the Year Pennsylvania Visual Arts (1999), PCA Cultural Award (2000), PCA Service to the Arts Award (2002)

Thaddeus Gilmore Mosley was born on July 23, 1926, in New Castle, Pennsylvania, the second youngest of five children and the only boy. Both sides of his family were farmers and miners. After high school graduation, he "entered as support company in California supplying Liberty ships" for the U.S. Navy. He was stationed on Peleliu Island in the western Pacific. With his ex-serviceman's grant he attended the University of Pittsburgh, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts with a double major in English and Journalism in 1950. While in college, he worked for photographer Isadore Frichman and the Pittsburgh Photo Guild, developing negatives in the darkroom a few hours each week. His interest in the visual arts was further piqued through a course titled "World Cultures," where he learned about different African art traditions and European modernist artists such as Constantin Brâncuși. He met his first wife, Ruth Ray, in 1960 at a dance and the two were married after his first year of college but later separated. They had three children together. They settled in Pittsburgh and he took a job with the U.S. Postal Service after graduation. He also worked as a freelance journalist and photographer in the 1950s for the Pittsburgh Courier and various national magazines such as Ebony, Sepia, and Jet. Articles he wrote on jazz musicians and athletes would later serve as inspiration for his carving and sculpture. Mosley became interested in pursuing sculpture through his frequent visits to the Carnegie Museum of Art and through his own art historical research at public libraries. He "was inspired to take up wood carving" after viewing a Scandinavian furniture display at a local department in the late 1950s. The display included wood carvings of birds and fish. Rather than paying $75 apiece for the animals, Mosley decided to make his own. This was the beginning of his lifelong passion for wood carving and his participation and activism in the Pittsburgh art scene, which would continue for the rest of his life. Mosley maintained close friendships with fellow African-American sculptors William Palmer, a wood carver, and Carl "Bat" Smith; with whom he exchanged ideas, gathered logs for carving, and visited museums and jazz clubs in Pittsburgh's Hill District. In 1961, along with African-American artists Charles Anderson and Lee Cowan, Mosely founded the Watt Lane Art Club. The three saw the club as the start of grassroots movement to establish a supported African-American art scene in Pittsburgh, and other artists soon joined. The club expanded to over 20 members, changed their name to Group One, and ran a community gallery in the Manchester neighborhood until their disbandment in 1964. The name Group One was likely a reference to the more established Pittsburgh art collective called Group A (previously known as The Abstract Group), of which Mosley was also a member. In 1964, he remarried to Yvonne Reed, by whom he would later have three children. The two moved to the Southside of Pittsburgh so he could have more studio space. He became well known to the general public in Pittsburgh after a local news channel, WQED, aired a special on the artist highlighting his studio. In the years that followed, he continued to work for the U.S. Postal Service and exhibit his sculpture locally. In 1968, "he was invited to have a one man exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Art," which earned him national recognition. He continually advocated for the African-American art community in Pittsburgh, including as an officer of the Pittsburgh Society of Sculptors and a board member for the August Wilson Center for African American Culture. Mosley died in Pittsburgh on March 6, 2026, at the age of 99.