Artist, activist, educator. Born Augusta Christine Fells on February 29, 1892, in Green Cove Springs, Florida. An important African-American artist, Savage began making art as a child, using the natural clay found in her community. She liked to sculpt animals and other small figures. But her father, a Methodist minister, didn’t approve of this activity, and did whatever he could to stop her. Savage once said that her father “almost whipped all the art out of me.”

Despite her father’s objections, Savage continued to make sculptures. When the family moved to West Palm Beach, Florida in 1915, she encountered a new challenge??a lack of clay. Savage eventually got some materials from a local potter and created a group of figures that she entered in a local county fair. Her work was well-received, winning a prize and the support of the fair’s organizer, George Graham Currie. He encouraged her to study art.

After a failed attempt to establish herself as a sculptor in Jacksonville, Florida, Savage moved to New York City in 1920s. She struggled financially throughout her life, but was able to study art at the Cooper Union, which did not charge tuition. After a year, the school gave her a scholarship to help with living expenses. Savage excelled there, finishing her course work in three years instead of the usual four.

While at the Cooper Union, she had an experience that would influence her life and work in 1923. Savage applied to a special summer program to study art in France, but was rejected because of her race. She took the rejection as a call to action, and sent letters to the local media about the program selection committee’s discriminatory practices. Savage’s story made headlines in many newspapers.

Despite her efforts, the committee refused to change its mind. Although disappointed, Savage found success in other areas. She started to make a name for herself as portrait sculptor. Her works from this time include portraits of such leading African Americans as W. E. B. DuBois and Marcus Garvey. Savage was considered to be one of the leading artists of the Harlem Renaissance, an African-American literary and artistic movement of the 1920s.

Eventually Savage did get her opportunity to study abroad. Several family crises delayed her for some time, but she finally got her chance. Savage won a Julius Rosenwald fellowship in 1929, based in part on her sculpture of her nephew entitled Gamin. The work depicted??with lifelike vitality??a young street child. Savage spent time in Paris and found support for her work there. She exhibited at the Grand Palais and won a second fellowship to continue her studies another year. Another grant allowed her to travel in Europe.

Savage returned the United States in 1932 while the Great Depression was in full swing. With portrait commissions hard to come by, she began teaching art and established the Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts. Savage helped many young African-American artists, including Jacob Lawrence and Norman Lewis. She also lobbied the Works Projects Administration (WPA) on behalf of African-American artists to help them find work during this time of financial crisis and helped to found the Harlem Artists’ Guild. This led to a directorial position at the WPA’s Harlem Community Center, which offered art instruction for all kinds of students.

Highly regarded as an artist, Savage was commissioned to create a sculpture for the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Inspired by some of the lyrics of the poem “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” she created The Harp. The work re-interpreted the musical instrument to feature African-American faces??depicted as if they were singing??appeared at the top of the harp strings, and the instrument’s sounding board is transformed into a hand and arm. In the foreground, the figure of a young man kneeled, offering music in his hands. Although this is considered to be one of her major works, The Harp was destroyed at the end of the fair.

In 1940, Savage moved out of the city to live the Catskill Mountains area. She spent more time teaching art than actually making art at this time. One notable work from this era was The Pugilist (1942)??a confident and defiant figure who appears prepared to take on whatever might come his way.

During her life, she was unlucky in love. She married John T. Moore in 1907, but he died soon. A few years later, she married James Savage, but that union ended in divorce. In 1923, she married Robert L. Poston, an associate of Marcus Garvey, but he died the next year. She had one daughter, Irene. When she became ill late in her life, she moved back to New York City to be with her daughter and her family.

 

Savage died of cancer on March 26, 1962, in New York City. While she was all but forgotten at the time of her death, Savage is remembered today as a great artist, activist, and arts educator, serving as an inspiration to the many that she taught, helped, and encouraged.

Faith Ringgold, painter, writer, speaker, mixed media sculptor and performance artist lives and works in Englewood, New Jersey. Ms Ringgold is professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego where she taught art from 1987 until 2002. Professor Ringgold is the recipient of more than 75 awards including 22 Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts Degrees. She has received fellowships and grants that include the National Endowment For the Arts Award for sculpture (1978) and for painting (1989); The La Napoule Foundation Award for painting in France (1990); The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship for painting (1987); The New York Foundation For the Arts Award for painting (1988); The American Association of University Women for travel to Africa (1976); The Creative Artists Public Service Award for painting (1971). Ringgold’s art has been exhibited in museums and galleries in the USA, Canada, Europe, Asia, South America, the Middle East, and Africa. Her art is included in many private and public art collections including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The National Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Boston Museum of Fine Art, The Chase Manhattan Bank Collection, The Baltimore Museum, Williams College Museum of Art, The High Museum of Fine Art, The Newark Museum, The Phillip Morris Collection, The St. Louis Art Museum and The Spencer Museum. Ms. Ringgold is represented by ACA Gallery in New York City. Ringgold’s public commissions include; People Portraits, 52 mosaics installed in the Los Angeles, California, Civic center subway station (2010); Flying Home: Harlem Heroes and Heroines, two 25 foot mosaic murals installed in the 125th street Subway station in New York City in 1996; The Crown Heights Children’s Story Quilt featuring folklore from the 12 major cultures that settled Crown Heights is installed in the library at PS 90 in Crown Heights, Brooklyn and Eugenio Maria de Hostos: A Man and His Dream, (1994) A mural celebrating the life of Eugenio Maria de Hostos for De Hostos Community College in the Bronx is installed in the atrium of the college. Ringgold’s first published book, the award winning, Tar Beach, “a book for children of all ages”, was published by Random House in 1991 and has won more than 30 awards including, a Caldecott Honor and the Coretta Scott King award for the best illustrated children’s book of 1991. The book, Tar Beach, is based on the story quilt Tar Beach, from Ringgold’s The Woman On A Bridge Series of 1988 and is in the permanent collection of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. HBO included an animated version of Tar Beach in “Good Night Moon and Other Sleepy Time Lullabies.” This program runs periodically on HBO and has been released as a DVD. Ringgold has completed sixteen children’s books including the above mentioned Tar Beach, Aunt Harriet’s Underground Railroad In The Sky, My Dream of Martin Luther King and Talking to Faith Ringgold, (an autobiographical interactive art book for children of all ages), The Invisible Princess, an original African American Fairy Tale based on the quilt Born in a Cotton Field all published by Random House. If a Bus Could Talk; The Story of Ms. Rosa Parks won the NAACP’s Image Award 2000 and is available from Simon and Schuster. O Holy Night and The Three Witches, and Bronzeville Boys and Girls are from Harper Collins. Faith Ringgold’s latest children’s book is Henry O. Tanner: His Boyhood Dream Comes True published by Bunker Hill Publishing. We Flew Over the Bridge: The Memoirs of Faith Ringgold, Ringgold’s first adult book was published by Little, Brown in 1995 and has been re-released by Duke University Press.