Augusta Savage

Augusta Savage (1892-1962) was an American sculptor. She made clay sculptures and was involved in the Harlem Renaissance.

Savage was born on February 29, 1892 in Green Cove Springs, Florida. She was the daughter of a Methodist minister. As a young woman she moved to Harlem. In 1921 she began studying art at the Cooper Union School of Art. Her tuition was paid by a scholarship she earned because of her talent. Around that time Savage also won a place in a summer class at the Fontainebleau School of Fine Arts in France. She travelled to France but when the teachers at the school saw Savage was black they told her she could not attend.

Savage returned to New York and began creating clay busts of important black people. She made portraits of W. E. B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey. In 1929 she made a portrait of her nephew and titled it Gamin. Many people admired this sculpture. It helped her win awards to study in Paris and to travel in Europe.

In 1937 Savage made the sculpture Lift Every Voice and Sing for the 1939 New York World's Fair.

In 1938 the Works Progress Administration started the Harlem Community Art Center. Savage was the director.

Savage died on March 26, 1962 in New York City.

Savage was married three times and had one child.

Savage's work is in  the Studio Museum in Harlem,  the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the New-York Historical Society. In 2019 the New-York Historical Society held a retrospective exhibition of her work. It was called Augusta Savage: Renaissance Woman. It had more than 50 items of her art on display.

 References 

 Other websites 

 Augusta Savage sculpting, in an excerpt from A Study of Negro Artists video
 Augusta Savage STORYTIME! African-American Harlem Renaissance Artist
 Activist Art on a World Stage  

Category:1892 births
Category:1962 deaths
Category:People from Florida
Category:American sculptors
Category:African-American people