Shining a belated light on artist Augusta Savage

Augusta Savage is one of those great unknown artists. That’s not surprising given that she was both black and female. The art world – heck, the world on a whole – has never fully valued women’s talents, whether art or writing or engineering, and has never put them on par with their male counterparts.

Like many, Savage is an artist who can stand on her own. She came a long way from a poor upbringing to become a celebrated figure among African American artists of the Harlem Renaissance. In fact, she taught many of the black artists whose names are more common and whose accomplishments have outshined hers. Along with being a mentor and teacher, she was also an activist and community organizer.

Savage was the only African American artist commissioned to create a sculpture for the 1939 New York World’s Fair. She took her inspiration from the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” published as a poem in 1900 by James Weldon Johnson and set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson. Blacks weren’t exactly welcomed at the fair, but a few, like Savage, produced materials for it.

 

Titled “The Harp,” the sculpture “takes the form of a huge harp whose strings are represented by Negroes. The sounding board of the harp is the arm and hand of the Creator,” according to a description attached to a photo in the Manuscripts and Archives Division of the New York Public Library.

It was sculpted in plaster and, like the other pieces at the fair, was destroyed after the event was over. Savage could not afford to produce it in bronze to extend its life.

Savage’s accomplishments are now the subject of a traveling exhibit titled “Augusta Savage: Renaissance Woman.” The New-York Historical Society is two weeks into its leg of the exhibit, which runs until July 28, 2019. The show features 80 works by Savage and the artists whom she influenced, taught and mentored, including Romare Bearden, Charles Alston, Jacob Lawrence, Gwendolyn Knight, Norman Lewis, William Artis, Selma Burke, and photographers Morgan and Marvin Smith.

The exhibit got its start at the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens in Jacksonville, FL, about 40 minutes north of Green Cove Springs where Savage was born. It includes sculptures, paintings, works on paper and photographs of the artist with her creations. The museum said this was the first full assessment of Savage’s works, and her impact on art and cultural history.

The exhibit heads next to the Palmer Museum of Art on the campus of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, where it will stay from August 24–Dec. 8, 2019.

Savage’s small sculpture “Gamin'” was among two works sold at Swann Auction Galleries in April. “Gamin’,” circa 1929, is made of plaster, painted dark brown and signed by the artist. The other was a pair of untitled figures of a flute player and dancer, both circa 1939, painted plaster with her signature.

She was born Augusta Christine Fells in 1892 into a family of 14 children with a Methodist-preacher father who didn’t take too well to his daughter’s interest in forming art figures out of red Florida clay.

She later won a special prize at a county fair for some of her figures, and encouraged by the win, she moved to Jacksonville hoping that she could sculpt portraits of affluent African Americans. That didn’t pan out, so she moved to New York with her daughter (Savage married three times.)

In New York, she attended the Cooper Union School of Art, became known as a portrait sculptor (she created portraits of W.E.B. DuBois and Marcus Garvey) and produced “Gamin’,” whose subject was her nephew. She founded the Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts in 1932 (where she taught and mentored many yet-to-be famous artists), was one of the founders of the Harlem Artists Guild and became the first African American member of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors in 1934. She was also named the first director of the Harlem Community Art Center. Savage took time off from that position to create “The Harp,” her largest and last commission.

At auction some years ago, I came across a box of filmstrips that had been sold to visitors at the 1939 fair. It contained snapshots of the exhibits sponsored by American companies, along with representations of American manhood and womanhood, among other things. That got me to wondering if black people were represented in any way.

That’s when I learned about “The Harp,” which was not featured among the subjects in the filmstrips. Googling, I learned that fair organizers asked Savage to create a piece that honored the musical contributions of African Americans. The 16-foot-tall sculpture was placed in the court of the Contemporary Arts building and won wide acclaim.

Soon after, I was put in touch with a woman, then in her 70s, who had grown up as a child near the old farmhouse and chicken coop where Savage lived in Saugerties, NY. Savage had left Harlem and retired into a rural existence with very little money. She struggled financially, the woman Audrey said, but also left this young girl with great memories.

“She was a wonderful, wonderful storyteller,” said Audrey. “Like with a parent, you wish you had listened better. She told many many stories. I spent my summer vacation behind her house. We would climb hills and small mountains.”

Another time, I found at auction a 1939 edition of the French magazine L’Illustration with photos and text pertaining to the fair. Flipping through the magazine, I found a color photo of Savage’s harp in the bottom right corner of a page with the caption: “Evocation de l’apport des noirs l’art musical, par Augusta Savage – phot. Rene Bras.”

Savage had lived in Paris during 1929 and 1930. She had first tried to get there a few years earlier by applying for a summer women’s program in France but was denied the opportunity because program officials felt that white students would be offended. Savage publicly denounced the exclusion, even complaining about it in a letter to the editor in a New York newspaper. After “Gamin'” was received favorably around 1929, she received financial support through foundation fellowships and grants to spend time in Europe.

In Paris, she sculpted black women, nudes and dancers, met African American expatriates and studied under French teachers. Savage returned to this country in 1931 but did not fare so well; as usual, she was strapped for money.

She opened two galleries, but both faltered, When she took time off from her position at the Harlem Art Center, she was replaced with another director. When she was ready to return, the job was gone. Those two circumstances were cited as the reason for her move to Saugerties in the 1940s.

Savage moved back to New York in the 1960s to live with her daughter. She died of cancer in 1962. Her home in Saugerties – now known as the Augusta Savage House and Studio – is on the National Register of Historical Places.