AUGUSTA SAVAGE
Augusta Savage, born Augusta Christine Fells, was a well-known American sculptor of the Harlem Renaissance as well as an activist and arts educator. Savage was born February 29, 1892, in Green Cove Springs, Florida. Her parents were Edward Fells, a Methodist minister, and Cornelia Murphy. Augusta was the seventh of fourteen children. Augusta began creating beautiful artwork in her own backyard using natural clay found in the soil. After attending Cooper Union, a university of the arts in New York City, Augusta not only made a name for herself as a sculptor during the Harlem Renaissance, but she also was awarded fellowships from the Julius Rosenwald Fund to study abroad in France.
Augusta’s father did not condone his daughter making small clay images. Being a minister, he felt that Augusta was creating graven images which, biblically, went against one of the Ten Commandments. In 1907, Augusta married John T. Moore, and she gave birth to her daughter Connie Moore the following year. Unfortunately, a few years later John passed. In 1915, their family moved to West Palm Beach, Florida. There, Augusta faced a new challenge: a lack of clay. This caused Augusta to not sculpt for nearly four years. While in West Palm Beach, she met and married James Savage, who was a carpenter. Although they divorced in the 1920s, Augusta kept his last name and was thereafter known as Augusta Savage.
In 1919, Savage’s artistic dry spell came to an end when she was gifted clay by her local potter. With that clay, she molded several clay figures to enter into the county fair. At that fair, Savage was awarded $25 and earned an additional $175 from sales and donations. That same year, Savage decided to move to Tallahassee, Florida, and attend Tallahassee State Normal School which is now known as Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU). In 1920, Savage moved to Jacksonville, Florida. Once in Jacksonville, she had hopes of supporting herself by sculpting busts of prominent blacks in the community such as W.E.B Du Bois and Marcus Garvey and James Weldon Johnson, which would have led to more exposure and recognition for her art. Although this venture failed, her passion for her art grew.
In 1921, Savage moved to New York City during the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, fashion, literature, theater, politics, and art. This period was also known as the “New Negro Movement.” At the time that she moved, Savage only had $4.60 to her name. She found a job as an apartment caretaker, however. After arriving in Harlem, Savage enrolled in the prestigious Cooper University. In 1923, Savage was awarded a scholarship to attend a program at Fontainebleau near Paris, France. This victory was short lived, however, as the scholarship was withdrawn when the scholarship committee discovered that she was black. Despite her efforts to fight back and file a complaint with the ethical culture committee, the decision was upheld. In that same year, she met her last husband Robert Lincoln Poston. Poston was a newspaper editor and journalist. Unfortunately, in 1924, Poston passed, and Savage never remarried.
In 1929, Savage created a bust in the likeness of her nephew Ellis Ford. It is entitled Gamin, which is French for “street urchin.” This piece was featured on the cover of Opportunity, which was the official magazine of the national Urban League. This became her best-known work and earned her a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship to study in Paris. In 1931, Savage received an extension of her fellowship and a Carnegie Foundation Grant. Her artwork was accepted into the Argent Gallery and the Art Anderson galleries in New York amid the Great Depression. Work was scarce, so she spent the next decade focusing more on education than artwork. In 1934, she established the Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts in New York. Her school attracted artists such as Norman Lewis, Jacob Lawrence, Gwendolyn Knight, and Ernest Crichlow. In 1934, Savage became the first African American artist elected to the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors.
In the year 1937, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) federal-arts projects were developed and the Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts evolved into the Harlem Community Art Center, where Savage would be its first director. By 1939, Savage was one of four women, and the only African American woman, to be commissioned by the New York World’s Fair. She was commissioned to create a sculpture symbolizing the musical contributions of African Americans. Inspired by James Weldon Johnson and John Rosamond Johnson’s composition “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” Savage spent two years constructing a 16-foot plaster sculpture named, “The Harp.” This was Savage’s largest art piece and her last major commission. “The Harp” received much praise during the New York World’s Fair (1939–1940) but was demolished after the fair ended due to the lack of funds to store it. Because her position as director of the community center had been filled, Savage attempted to re-establish the art center in Harlem by opening the Salon of Contemporary Negro Art. This gallery did not stay open for long due to financial troubles.
Augusta decided to retire from art in 1945 and moved to the small town of Saugerties, New York, where she took on work on a mushroom farm. Although Savage continued to recreationally mold clay, she did not create another work of art. Savage taught children at summer camps how to mold clay and wrote, but never published children’s books. In 1962, Savage moved in with her daughter to New York City, as Savage was battling cancer. On May 26, 1962, Augusta Savage lost her battle to cancer, and left her legacy as a great artist, activist, and arts educator. In 2008, Savage was posthumously inducted into the Florida Artist Hall of Fame because of her significant contributions to the arts in Florida.