**FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**

EDITORS: For review copies or interview requests, contact:Promotional Services DepartmentTel: 888-728-8467Fax: 812-961-3133Email: pressreleases@authorhouse.com(When requesting a review copy, please provide a street address.)

Greg Ridley, Master of Copper Tooling Artist’s Sister and Niece Chronicle His Early Life, Journey and Legacy in New Book

“O – Thy God will give thee eternity for the price of labor” – Leonardo da Vinci

HAMILTON, Bermuda – Greg Ridley, master of copper repoussé, sculptor and artist of the 1960s Black is Beautiful movement, lived by the above quotation from Leonardo da Vinci, driving him to unbelievable artistic heights and establishing his legacy as an artist for eternity. Now, his surviving sister, Kate Ridley Jackson, and his niece, Constance Ridley Smith, have come together to publish a record of Greg Ridley’s life, influences and the lasting impact of his oeuvre in the new biography, Greg Ridley, Master of Copper Tooling (published by AuthorHouse).

Greg Ridley was born in a small community 20 miles outside of Nashville, Tenn., during the post-depression years when race was a limiting factor in an African-American’s life. Nevertheless, from an early age strong family values were instilled in the Ridley children along with a healthy mixture of discipline and playfulness.

Greg exhibited a passion for art at an early age and pursued it to Fisk University, where he studied under the likes of Aaron Douglas, an African-American painter made famous during the Harlem Renaissance. It was under Douglas’ guidance that Greg truly came into his own. It is said that Greg’s approach to art was the same as his approach to life: he was sensual and uninhibited, fully expressing who he was with every breath. Being exposed to new art forms and media informed Greg’s work and caused him to strive for newer, stronger ways of expressing drama. He sought to achieve this through manipulation of color, as Hale Woodruff had done, and experimentation with composition, using distortion and abstraction, as his mentor Aaron Douglas had done. But it was only when Greg changed his medium, opting for metal instead of canvas, that his art achieved its height of dramatic expression.

Greg Ridley tied himself to greatness, continually endeavoring to carve out his own identity as an artist. This quality is what makes his crowning achievement, 80 plates in copper repoussé depicting facets of Nashville’s history, which now hang in the Ben West Public Library, a work of remarkable mastery and achievement, solidifying Ridley’s place in art history. Comprehensive, insightful and touching, Greg Ridley, Master of Copper Tooling illuminates the dedicated man and dreamer behind Ridley’s magnificent work.

Kate Ridley Jackson is Greg’s most ardent supporter and an historian, who earned her bachelor’s degree in history from Fisk University and her master’s degree in library service from Atlanta University. She later became the first African American librarian with professional library credentials to work in the downtown library of Toledo, Ohio.

Constance Ridley Smith is Greg’s niece and received her bachelor’s degree in music education and her master’s degree in public administration from Tennessee State University. She and her uncle Greg collaborated to publish a children’s book, A-Kids Activity Book. Constance is also the author of a series of character-building storybooks for children, Stories that Teach, and several books on women of the Bible: Mothers of Faith, Mothers of Hope, Mothers of Love, and Nothing New Under the Sun.

AuthorHouse is the premier book publisher for emerging, self-published authors. For more information, please visit www.authorhouse.com.

###