Augusta Savage (1892-1962)
Augusta Savage was born in Green Cove Springs, Florida. She had a knack for sculpting even as a small child, making mud ducks and selling them at the local fair. She married at the age of 15, but her husband died the following year, after having a child together. In 1915, her family moved to West Palm Beach, where she met a potter and acquired 25 pounds of clay. Her sculpture received much local attention, and through a series of events and support of teachers, Savage traveled to New York City in her quest to become a professional sculptor.
Savage was admitted to the Cooper Union School, which was tuition-free, and finished her 4 year program in 3 years. She traveled abroad to France on a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship, which she was awarded for her sculpture, Gamin, and joined a group of black artists and intellectuals, including Hale Woodruff, Henry Tanner, and Countee Cullen. There, she studied with Felix Benneteau at the Academy de la Grand Chaumiere and had two works accepted for the Salon d’Automne. Savage also exhibited at the Grand Palais in Paris.
By the early 1930s, Savage was living in Harlem and had created a school, Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts. In 1933, she founded The Vanguard, a group of Harlem intellectuals who met in her studio to discuss politics, art, and the condition of the African American. In 1938, Savage was commissioned to do a sculpture for the New York World’s Fair, occurring the following year. Inspired by a song written by Rosamund and James Weldon Johnson, she produced the 16 foot painted plaster Lift Every Voice and Sing near the Contemporary Art Museum. Funds to have the work cast in bronze never materialized, and the sculpture was bulldozed at the closing of the fair. Only the small metal maquettes remain.
Despite many professional losses, Savage held a one woman show at the Argent Galleries, NY in 1939. She moved to Saugerties, NY where she lived in relative obscurity, but continued to teach and mentor artists, as well as write fiction. Savage passed after a long battle with cancer in 1962.
“Gamin is a term that was applied to street urchins who were often the subjects of paintings and literature in the 19th century. Here, the casually attired, street wise boy about 12 years old is reputedly the sculptor’s nephew, Ellis Ford, who lived in Harlem. Although Gamin represents a specific individual, the subject convincingly fits the profile of hundreds of preadolescent urban ghetto youths during rebellious and frequently uncomfortable stages in their lives. Girl-shy and uncertain of the rites of passage in to young manhood, this young resident of Harlem, nevertheless, appears ready and willing to face the future.
Savage effectively captured the essence of her subject’s personality in this diminutive bust. Wearing a “be-bop” cap with its wide brim cocked jauntily to the side, the figure tilts his head in the same direction and looks past the observer with a slightly sullen expression of typical boyhood defiance. The sculpture was modeled in clay, cast in plaster, and painted to resemble the award-winning version. Savage’s facility in handling the clay medium is clearly demonstrated in her sensitive modeling of the boy’s broad features, deeply set eyes, and prominent ears. In addition, the open collar of his wrinkled shirt and crumpled cap contribute to the sculpture’s informality and immediate appeal.”
REF: Free within Ourselves: African-American Artists in the Collection of the National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art in Association with Pomegranate Art Books, 1992; 157.