Black Excellence Month: Augusta Savage

Augusta Savage
(1892-1962)

Augusta Savage was born in Green Cove Springs, Florida, and spent much of her early life sculpting. She excelled in many areas such as art, photography, and education. She attended school at Tallahassee State Normal School (currently known as Florida Agriculture and Mechanical University) from 1919-1920. She moved to Harlem, New York, in 1921 and graduated from the Cooper Union three years later. 

She was awarded the first-ever working scholarship from Cooper Union that helped offset her living expenses. In 1923 she had received a scholarship to attend Fontainebleau School of Fine Arts in France, but her award was revoked because the two other recipients refused to travel with her because she was black. Savage was first recognized for her sculptures that she exhibited in the 1920s. She quickly gained support from other important African American cultural icons of the time, such as W. E. B. Dubois and Julian Rosenwald.

Her sculptures were beautiful and depicted African Americans in a compassionate light. This was very different from the “less than human” idea of many others of the time. Her most prominent sculpture was called Lift Every Voice and Sing (1937-1939), also known as The Harp. It was a 16-foot tall sculpture that portrayed a choir as the strings and their arms as the base. It was eventually destroyed due to its size and lack of funding for storage. Though she was a successful sculpture, her biggest claim to fame is as an educator of the arts. She taught all ages, from small children all the way to those in their late adulthood. She was noted as one of the very few African American women that were sculptors of her time.