Happy Black History & Jazz Month ✊🏾 Augusta Savage - sculptor, activist. Augusta Christine Fells, (born February 29, 1892, Green Cove Springs, Florida, U.S.—died March 26, 1962, New York, New York), American sculptor and educator who battled racism to secure a place for African American women in the art world. Augusta Fells began modeling figures from the red-clay soil of her native Florida at an early age. When just 15 years old, she married John T. Moore in 1907 and had her only child, Irene, in 1908. Once she discovered a good source for clay, Savage thrived artistically in West Palm Beach, receiving local encouragement and prizes. She moved to Jacksonville, Florida, hoping to make a living by executing commissioned busts of the city’s well-to-do African Americans, moved to New York City to study art. In 1923 Savage became the focus of a racial scandal involving the French government and the American arts community. Her application was subsequently refused by the French on the basis of her race. The American sculptor Hermon A. MacNeil was the only member of the committee to denounce the decision, and he invited Savage to study with him in an attempt to make amends. In the 1920s Savage received commissions to sculpt portrait busts of W.E.B. Du Bois and black nationalist Marcus Garvey; both pieces were hailed for their power and dynamism. On the strength of these works and especially the poignant Gamin (1929)—a portrait bust of a streetwise boy and one of Savage’s few extant pieces—she received a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship that enabled her finally to study in Paris in 1929–31.

Posted by madameolen at 2023-02-25 16:46:59 UTC