Creating Connections: Self-Taught Artists in the Rosenthal Collection Audio Exhibition
Ned Cartledge (American, 1916–2001), Hell Ain’t Half Full, 1986, carved and painted wood, 17 ¼ x 33 ½ in. (43.8 x 85.1 cm), Collection of Richard Rosenthal
Verbal Description
Hello, my name is Emily Holtrop, and I am the museum’s director of learning and interpretation. I will be reading the verbal description for Hell Ain’t Half Full by Ned Cartledge in Creating Connections: Self-Taught Artists in the Rosenthal Collection.
Ned Cartledge was an American artist who lived from 1916 to 2001. He created Hell Ain’t Half Full, in 1986, in carved and painted wood. It is in the collection of Richard Rosenthal.
Hell Ain’t Half Full is a carved wood relief sculpture measuring 17 and one-quarter by 33 and one-half inches or 43.8 by 85.1 centimeters. Moving from left to right, we see five figures standing behind podiums, each ready to give a speech. Each figure has writing and pictures over his head that indicates, as the artist tells us in an inscription at the left, (quote) “What He’s Thinking.” On the front of each podium is additional writing sharing (quote) “What He’s Saying,” and below each podium is text communicating the (quote) “Artist’s Comments.”
The leftmost figure is a white man with raised arms in a blue suit and a red, white, and blue striped necktie. On the podium is a white cross. The text above him says, “The Lord Will Bring it To Me.” The image accompanying the text is of an angel holding a dollar sign. The text on the podium says, “The Lord Has Called Me To Bring His Message to You. With Your Contributions to the Lord, We will Get the Job Done.” The Artist’s Comments are, “For They Are Such Serve Not Our Lord, Jesus Christ But Their Own Belly, And By Good Words And Fair Speeches Deceive The Hearts Of The Simple. – Romans 16-18.”
The second man is identically dressed and has his left arm raised, holding a Holy Bible. Above his head are two lambs with the text “They Will Follow Me Anywhere.” The text on the front of the podium, along with an image of a slightly bent white cross with a green base, says, “Within The Covers Of This Great Book Are All The Answers To All The Problems We Face Today. We Need Your Help To Bring This Message To The World.” The Artist’s Comments are, “If This Be True Nothing Remains To Be Learned Or Discovered, It Was All Revealed When The Ink Dried On The Bible. An Intelligent Person Will Analyze This Statement Carefully.”
The central male figure has dark winged lines as eyebrows and the buds of horns growing from the top of his head. He wears a pink suit the changes to blue at chest level. He raises his hands to the height of his ears. Above his head is a drawing of a gold church with the words, “A Gold Church is Better than a Crystal Cathedral.” The text on the podium, accompanied by a white cross with a green base bending into an s-shape, states, “Good Christians, Like Slaves And Soldiers Ask No Questions. If Each of You Will Send Twenty Dollars a Week I Believe You Will Be Doing God’s Will.” The Artist’s Comments are, “If You Applied This Rationale To Any Other Aspects Of Your Life You Would Certainly Be An Unhappy Failure. So Why Your Religion? The Jonestown Tragedy Is Testimony To Followers Who Did Not Question Their Religious Leader.”
The last two characters take on the guise of the devil, complete with red robes, dark-winged eyebrows, and horns. The figure on the left holds two silver plates aloft. Above his head is “What he is thinking:” a drawing of a house with palm trees and the words, “My Wife and I Always Wanted a Palm Springs Home, So We Could Help Those Poor People Out There.” As we move across the relief, the cross on the front of the podiums bends into an s-shape and shifts from white to green, finally morphing into a dollar sign. In this fourth vignette, this transformation is not quite complete: two diagonal lines cross the “S.” The words on the podium (What he is Saying) state, “We Need to Enlarge Our Studios, it Will Cost Two Million Dollars. I Need Your Help. God Will Bless You if You Help Do This.” The Artist’s Comments below the podium say, “The Sons of God Came To Present Themselves Before The Lord, and Satan Came Also Among Them. Job 1-6.”
The figure on the right side of the carving completes this scene. Also, in vivid red-devil form, he holds three stacks of money before him. The image above his head is a drawing of the White House with the text, “What We Need Is A Christian In the White House Who Attends Church.” The content on the front of his podium, which now displays a green dollar sign, says, “We Are Going To See A Change in This Nation, And Your Donations Are Going to Make This Possible. Use Our Toll Free Number.” The Artist’s Comments say, “If Jesus Christ Were To Return Today, The People Wouldn’t Crucify Him, They Would Use His Words To Raise Money for Their Ego Trips.”
The artist has signed and dated the work “Ned Cartledge 86” in the lower right corner.
Label Text
Hello, my name is Emily Holtrop, and I am the museum’s director of learning and interpretation. I will be reading the label for Hell Ain’t Half Full by Ned Cartledge in Creating Connections: Self-Taught Artists in the Rosenthal Collection.
Ned Cartledge was an American artist who lived from 1916 to 2001. He created Hell Ain’t Half Full, in 1986, in carved and painted wood. It is in the collection of Richard Rosenthal.
After years of carving “nice” things, as he called them, such as animals and fruit, Ned Cartledge found he could not be silent in his opposition to the Vietnam War. In about 1970, the Atlanta artist began making satirical relief sculptures to express his passionate views on politics and society. Hell Ain’t Half Full cuts to the quick, taking aim at greed and hypocrisy in the name of religion.
As with many carvers, Cartledge’s work emerged from the tradition of whittling as a creative pastime for boys. “As a boy of about seven or eight years old, I started carving little pistols and guns and little things out of wood. You know, use to you could go around in back of a grocery store and get all kinds of packing crates and things that have great soft pine wood in them. My mother would fuss at me about getting her paring knife.”