Born: 29 February 1892, United States
Died: 26 March 1962
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women founder Allison Tyra’s book The View from the Hill: Women Who Made Their Mark After 40.
The odds of becoming an artist were stacked high against Savage, not least because her strict father, a Methodist minister, hated his daughter’s early interest. “My father licked me four or five times a week,” Savage once recalled of his physical abuse, “and almost whipped all the art out of me.” Born in 1892, Savage married her first husband and had a child while still in her teens. By 1924, she had lost three husbands, two to death and one to divorce.
Failing to find her desired professional success in Florida, Savage left her daughter, Irene, with her parents and moved to New York. Enrolling at the Cooper Union School of Art, she completed the four-year program in three years and was awarded a fellowship in 1929 to study in Paris and later a grant to support eight months of travel in France, Belgium, and Germany.
Returning to New York in 1932 at age 40, she founded the Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts, becoming an influential teacher during the later years of the Harlem Renaissance. In 1934, she was the first African American artist admitted to the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. Savage was appointed the first director of the Harlem Community Art Center in 1937 when it opened as part of the Federal Art Project. Not long after, she was commissioned by the New York World’s Fair of 1939 to craft a sculpture symbolizing African Americans’ musical contributions. The resulting piece, The Harp, was her largest work and last major commission, leading to her taking an almost-two-year leave of absence from the Harlem Community Art Center in order to complete the 16-foot sculpture. Drawing inspiration from James Weldon Johnson’s poem “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” The Harp featured 12 Black singers in graduated heights forming the “strings” of a harp. But after the fair closed, all its artworks were destroyed—the sculpture and two years of Savage’s work were gone, a symbol of what was to come.
When she tried to return to the Harlem Community Art Center, Savage found that someone else had assumed the role of director, and the center would close a few years later when federal funding was cut off during World War II. In 1939, she opened the Salon of Contemporary Negro Art, a small gallery in Harlem. But by this time, the Harlem Renaissance had waned and the art center closed soon after opening for lack of funds. Things would only get worse as, for years, she was unable to find support for a showing of her work or further commissions, likely due in part to the increasing U.S. involvement in World War II in the early and mid-1940s. Depressed, Savage left Harlem for the Catskills Mountains in 1945 and re-established a relationship with her daughter Irene, now in her 30s. Finding peace in the country, Savage taught local children, produced the occasional portrait sculpture of tourists, and took up writing, though none of her work was published. She died in relative obscurity in 1962.
The following bio was written by Emma Rosen, author of On This Day She Made History: 366 Days With Women Who Shaped the World and This Day In Human Ingenuity & Discovery: 366 Days of Scientific Milestones with Women in the Spotlight, and has been republished with permission.
Augusta Savage, a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, an influential sculptor and educator, was born in 1892. She played a vital role in promoting African American art and artists. Despite facing racial and gender discrimination, she achieved national recognition for her work, including the notable sculpture “The Harp” for the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Savage was also dedicated to teaching and mentoring the next generation of artists, establishing her own studio and the Harlem Community Art Center to support and elevate the careers of African Americans in the arts. She died in 1962.