NEW YORK, NY.- A painted wood relief by American folk artist Elijah Pierce (1892-1984) achieved a record $87,500 at Doyle New York’s April 2 auction of American Paintings, Furniture and Decorative Arts. Titled Presidents and Convicts and executed in 1941, the work sold to a British buyer for $87,500, setting a new world auction record for the artist.

In Presidents and Convicts, Pierce employed simple and direct images and forceful colors to depict an unusual composition of seemingly disparate images -- road gangs of convicts, formal busts of Presidents Lincoln and Washington, and Uncle Sam shaking hands with a young African-American soldier beneath an American flag.

The youngest son of a former Mississippi slave, Elijah Pierce began carving as a young boy, initially carving small farm animals from wood. He used to give away his carvings to his fellow students at school, thereby beginning his lifelong practice of giving his carved pieces to his admirers. Although he worked for many years as a barber, he was called to the ministry, receiving his preacher’s license from his home church in Mississippi.

Settling in Columbus, Ohio, during the late 1920s Pierce began carving seriously. Some of his animal figures were inspired by passages from the Book of Genesis. By the early 1930s he began mounting his three-dimensional figures on cardboard or wooden backgrounds, as may be seen in Presidents and Convicts. Pierce depicted African-American sports heroes, Biblical subjects and political and social issues. He is best known for his religious carvings including the “Book of Wood," a series of 33 large reliefs, each representing one of the 33 years of the life on earth of Jesus Christ.

Considered one of the most important American folk carvers of the 20th century, Pierce continued to pursue his disparate careers as a barber, lay minister and woodcarver until his death in 1984.

Another highlight of the April 2 sale was Connecticut, Rocks and Pools (Dogs in a Stream), a masterful work by Percival Leonard Rosseau (1859-1937), who specialized in painting pointers and English setters. The painting sold to a mid-western buyer for $93,750, doubling its estimate of $30,000-50,000.

The auction also achieved strong prices for works by Levi Wells Prentice, Severin Roesen, Edward Moran, Victor Dubreuil, Abbott Fuller Graves, Charles Warren Eaton and Edward Percy Moran.

Doyle New York will again offer paintings by American artists in the May 6 auction of Impressionist and Modern Art.