Augusta Savage

Augusta Savage
Nationality	American
Education	Cooper Union, Academie de la Grande Chaumiere
Known for	Sculpture
Patron(s)	Teachers from Florida A&M

Augusta Savage, born Augusta Christine Fells was born on February 29, 1892 – March 26, 1962. She was an African American sculptor associated with the Harlem Renaissance. She was also a teacher, and a voice for equal rights.

Early life and work

Augusta Fells (Savage) was born in Green Cove Springs (near Jacksonville), Florida. She began making clay figures as a child, mostly small animals, but her father would beat her when he found her sculptures. This was because at that time, he believed her sculpture to be a sinful practice, based upon his interpretation of the "graven images" portion of the Bible. After the family moved to West Palm Beach, she sculpted a Virgin Mary figure, and, upon seeing it, her father changed his mind, regretting his past actions. The principal of her new school recognized and encouraged her talent, and paid her one dollar a day to teach modeling during her senior year. This began a life-long commitment to teaching as well as to art.

In 1907, she married John Moore; they had a daughter, Irene, but John died shortly after. She moved back in with her parents, who raised Irene with her. Augusta continued to model clay, and applied for a booth at the Palm Beach county fair: the initially apprehensive fair officials ended up awarding her a 25 dollar prize, and the sales of her art totaled 175 dollars; a significant sum at that time and place.

That success encouraged her to apply to Cooper Union (Art School) in New York City, where she was admitted in October, 1921. During this time she married James Savage; they divorced after a few months, but she kept the name of Savage. She excelled in her art classes at Cooper, and was accelerated through foundation classes. Her talent and ability so impressed the staff and faculty at Cooper, that she was awarded funds for room and board, tuition being already covered for all Cooper students.

In 1923 she applied for a summer art program sponsored by the French government; despite being more than qualified, she was turned down by the international judging committee, solely because she was African-American (Bearden & Henderson, AHOAAA, p. 169-170). Savage was deeply upset, and questioned the committee, beginning the first of many public fights for equal rights in her life. The incident got press coverage on both sides of the Atlantic, and eventually the sole supportive committee member, sculptor Hermon MacNeil—who at one time had shared a studio with Henry Ossawa Tanner—invited her to study with him. She later cited him as one of her teachers.

After Cooper, she worked in Manhattan steam laundries to support herself and her family. Her father had been paralyzed by a stroke, and the family's home destroyed by a hurricane; her entire family moved into her small West 137th Street apartment. During this time she obtained her first commission, a bust of W. E. B. DuBois for the local Harlem Library. Her outstanding sculpture brought more commissions, including a bust of Marcus Garvey.

She married a protegé of Garvey, Robert Lincoln Poston, in 1923. Poston died aboard a ship returning from Liberia as part of a UNIA delegation in 1924.

In 1925 she won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Rome; the scholarship covered only tuition, and she was not able to raise any money for travel and living expenses. Thus she was unable to attend.

Knowledge of Savage's talent and struggles became widespread in the African-American community; fund-raising parties were held in Harlem and Greenwich Village, and African-American Women's groups and teachers from Florida A&M all sent her money for studies abroad. In 1929, she enrolled and attended the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, a leading Paris art school. She exhibited and won awards in two Salons and one Exposition. She toured France, Belgium, and Germany, researching sculpture in cathedrals and museums.

Later work and achievements

She returned to the States in 1931, energized from her studies and achievements. The Depression had almost stopped art sales in general, the majority of America now being in a financial state that Augusta Savage had always been in. She pushed on, and in 1934 became the first African-American artist to be elected to the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. She then launched the Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts, located in a basement on West 143rd Street in Harlem. She opened her studio to anyone who wanted to paint, draw, or sculpt. Her many young students would include the future monumental artists Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis (artist), and Gwendolyn Knight; another student was the sociologist Kenneth B. Clark, whose later research would be the basis of 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education that outlawed school segregation. Her school evolved into the Harlem Community Art Center; 1500 people of all ages and abilities participated in her workshops, learning from her multi-cultural staff, and showing work around NYC. Funds from the WPA helped, but old struggles of discrimination were revived between Savage and WPA officials who objected to her leadership role.

1939, Savage was astonished to receive a commission from the World's Fair; she then created Lift Every Voice and Sing, inspired by the song by James Weldon and Rosamond Johnson. The 16 foot tall plaster sculpture was the most popular and most photographed work at the fair; small metal souvenir copies were made and sold by the fair, and many postcards of the piece were purchased. Savage did not have any funds to have it cast in bronze, or even to move and store it, and it was destroyed by bulldozers at the close of the fair.

She opened two galleries, whose shows were well attended and well reviewed, but few sales resulted, and the galleries closed.

Deeply depressed, in the 1940s she moved to a farm in Saugerties (near Woodstock), New York, where she stayed until 1960. She worked on a mushroom farm, and made little or no effort to talk about or create art, though it was said by her few neighbors that she was always making something with her hands.

She lived her last days with her daughter Irene, at her home in New York, where she died.

Much of her work is in clay or plaster, as she did not have the funds for bronze. One of her most famous busts is titled Gamin. Though her art and influence is documented, the location of much of her work is unknown.

References

• Bearden, Romare and Henderson, Harry. A History of African-American Artists (From 1792 to the Present), pp. 168-180, Pantheon Books (Random House), 1993, ISBN 0-394-57016-2

External links

• Schomburg Center
• Smithsonian Archives