Augusta Savage

”I have created nothing really beautiful, really lasting, but if I can inspire one of these youngsters to develop the talent I know they possess, then my monument will be in their work.”— Augusta SavageOne of the best known Black women sculptors of the Harlem Renaissance period left behind a small body of work, much of it left to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem New York.

Augusta Christine Fells Savage (1892-1962) was born in Green Cove Springs, Florida on February 29, 1892, a leap year and its symbolism meant a lot to her. Like Beulah Woodard, Savage’s parents, particularly her religious father, did not respect her artistic path. In fact, he almost “whipped the art” out of her. Still, she persisted, catching attention, moving onto study at Cooper Union (in an advanced capacity), and winning an opportunity to study at Fontainebleau. Unfortunately, due to racism, she was asked to forfeit the prize. Despite bringing her case to federal attention, her request to have the decision overturned was denied. That up started Savage’s passion towards advocating for racial justice, especially in art. She would later enroll at Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris with pooled money from friends and other prominent resources. While there, she received two consecutive Julian Rosenwald awards— making new sculptures and showing and winning prizes at the Paris salons, a real feat for a Black woman artist. In addition to France, she visited Germany and Belgium as well. Once returning back to the states, Savage opened up her tiny Harlem apartment, turning the basement into a communal studio. Artists like Norman Lewis, Gwendolyn Knight, and Marvin and Martin Smith were some of her most famous students.

Savage’s sculpture immensely touched and healed the community due to her classical proficiency in capturing the Black human spirit. She was quite remarkable in rendering her sitter’s faces as finely detailed busts including W.E.B. DuBois, Mary Bethune, and James Weldon Johnson. Although often limited in her materials, lacking financial means to casting her work in more permanent resolutions such as marble or bronze, the vulnerable clay and plaster creations seemingly operate in a dual role— keeping the art sustainable and embracing the subject of blackness as poignant, worthy of immortalizing.

Gwendolyn Knight, painted plaster, 1934-1935, Artstor. 

Gwendolyn Knight, painted plaster, 1934-1935, Artstor.

Gwendolyn Knight, painted plaster, 1934-1935, Artstor.

Savage moved up to Saugerties, New York, living out the remainder of her years reclusively gardening, making small works (which have either been destroyed or lost), and writing short stories and poetry. She died of cancer on March 27, 1962 at age 70.

She has been inducted into the Florida Artist Hall of Fame in Cove Springs, Florida (2007), her home and studio in Saugerties is a registered national landmark, and her papers are available at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. She is in the collections of Studio Museum Harlem, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Seattle Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens. She was recently the subject of a brilliant, well-researched traveling exhibition Augusta Savage: Renaissance Woman curated by Dr. Jeffreen Hayes.