African-American Sculptor Augusta Savage
If you were to count three astounding pieces of art, two would be paintings or sculptures of white men. The other piece of visual art might be a white woman or a black man. The world of visual art does not have many famous black women. It is a typically cishet white male-dominated space. So when I discovered the work of Augusta Savage I just had to tell you about her.
Augusta Savage is an African- American Sculptor. The daughter of Methodist minister Edward Fells and Cornelia Murphy, Augusta Christine Fells was born on February 29, 1892, in Green Cove Springs, Florida (near Jacksonville).
As a young child, Augusta started crafting figurines out of local natural red clay, usually little animals. Her father, a poor Methodist clergyman, vehemently resisted his daughter's early interest in the arts. Savage recounted receiving spankings from her father in an attempt to stop her from creating sculptures.
He did this because, according to his understanding of the Bible's passage on "graven images," he considered her sculpture to be an immoral practice. She persisted, and after her family moved to West Palm Beach in 1915, the principal of her new high school there encouraged her gift and gave her permission to teach a clay modelling class. This marked the start of a lifetime of dedication to both teaching and producing art.
Savage continued to create clay sculptures, and in 1919 she was permitted to set up shop at the Palm Beach County Fair. She arrived with $4.60 and a letter of recommendation for sculptor Solon Borglum from Palm Beach County Fair employee George Graham Currie. She got admitted to Cooper Union in New York City in October 1921 after Borglum suggested she apply thereafter learning she couldn't afford the School of American Sculpture's fees.
She was chosen ahead of the 142 males who were waiting. She was given additional funding for room and board despite losing the financial support of her work as an apartment caretaker because the Cooper Union Advisory Council was impressed by her aptitude and abilities. She studied under the sculptor George Brewster from 1921 to 1923. In three years, she finished her four-year degree program.
Augusta Fells married John T. Moore in 1907 at the age of 15, and the couple had a daughter named Irene Connie Moore the following year. John passed away shortly after that. In 1915, after relocating to West Palm Beach, she fell in love with and married James Savage; despite the couple's early 1920s divorce, she continued to go by the name Savage.
One of Savage’s most famous sculptures ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’. (2022, October 25).
Savage supported herself and her family by working in Manhattan steam laundries after completing her education at Cooper Union. Her father had suffered a stroke that left him immobile, and a hurricane had damaged their home. She relocated her little West 137th Street apartment's Florida-based family.
She received her first commission at this time, a bust of W. E. B. Du Bois, from the New York Public Library on West 135th Street. Her exceptional sculpture led to more commissions, one of which was for a bust of Marcus Garvey. Many of her works, including her bust of William Pickens Sr., a significant figure in the NAACP, received recognition for portraying an African American in a more sympathetic, neutral approach as opposed to stereotypes of the period.
Savage wed Robert Lincoln Poston, a Garvey protege, in 1923. As a member of an African Communities League and Universal Negro Improvement Association delegation returning from Liberia in 1924, Poston passed away from pneumonia on board a ship. With the assistance of W.E.B. DuBois, Savage was granted a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Rome in 1925.
She was unable to go because the scholarship only covered tuition; she also needed money for travel and living costs. Savage caught the attention of author and eccentric Joe Gould in the 1920s. He wanted to marry her and wrote her "endless letters" and called her frequently. This obsession eventually developed into harassment.
To explore sculpture in cathedrals and museums, she travelled across France, Belgium, and Germany. Savage came back inspired by her studies and accomplishments, she returned to the United States in 1931. Sales of paintings had nearly ceased during the Great Depression. She persisted, and in 1934 she was elected to the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors as the first African-American artist.
With the aid of a grant from the Carnegie Foundation, she established the Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts, which is housed in a basement on West 143rd Street in Harlem. Anyone who wanted to paint, draw, or sculpt was welcome to use her studio. Future well-known artists Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, and Gwendolyn Knight were among her numerous young pupils.
Ministry of Education, which declared segregation in schools to be unconstitutional. Savage took over as the head of the Harlem Community Art Center in 1937; 1,500 participants of all ages and skill levels took part in her courses, gaining knowledge from her multicultural team, and exhibiting their work throughout New York City.
Although money from the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was helpful, Savage still faced discrimination from WPA officials who disapproved of her holding a leadership position. Only two African Americans and one of four women were given professional commissions by the Board of Design to be a part of the 1939 New York World's Fair.
She was inspired by the song by James Weldon and Rosamond Johnson to create ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’, commonly known as "The Harp." The 16-foot-tall plaster sculpture, which was one of the most well-known and frequently photographed works at the fair, was in front of the Contemporary Arts Building; miniature metal souvenir reproductions of it were available, and many people bought postcards featuring it.
With the harp's sounding board changed into an arm and a hand, the piece reinvented the musical instrument by using 12 singing African-American teenagers of varying heights as its strings. A young man was kneeling in the front and holding music in his hands. Savage lacked the money to have the sculpture cast in bronze or to transport and keep it, As a result, the sculpture was dismantled after the fair was over, just like other transient exhibits.
Savage established two galleries, both of which hosted well-attended and well-received exhibitions, but which ultimately failed to generate enough sales to remain open. In 1939, her work had its final significant exhibition. Savage, who was suffering from severe depression as a result of her financial difficulties, went to a farm in Saugerties, New York, in 1945.
She formed strong relationships with her neighbours while residing in Saugerties and frequently hosted relatives and friends visiting from New York City at her rural residence. She bought a car and became a driver to make her journey possible. The laboratory's director, Herman K. Knaust, urged Savage to pursue her artistic endeavors and gave her art equipment.
Savage's output of art slowed considerably, but she continued to sculpt friends and tourists, teach painting to kids in summer camps, and experiment with writing children's stories. Poultney Bigelow, an American writer and author whose father, John, served as the United States Minister to France during the American Civil War, was the subject of her final commission from Knaust. Her sparsely populated neighbors claimed that she was constantly creating something by hand.
When Savage's health began to deteriorate, she moved in with her daughter Irene in New York City. On March 26, 1962, Savage passed away from cancer. Although Savage passed away in relative obscurity, she is regarded today as a remarkable artist, activist, and arts educator who inspired many people via her teaching, support, and encouragement.