AUGUSTA SAVAGE, SCULPTOR AND TEACHER

Here stood the childhood home of Augusta Savage (1892-1962), a gifted sculptor who fought poverty and racism to become a leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance. The seventh of 14 children born to Edward and Cornelia Fells, Augusta taught herself to fashion animals of clay from a nearby brickyard. A first marriage and motherhood postponed her artistic ambitions. She later married James Savage in 1915 and moved to West Palm Beach. A group of clay figures that she created for the County Fair won a cash prize, and its superintendent encouraged her further formal education. Efforts to live by sculpting portraits of Jacksonville’s black elite failed, but sponsors advised Savage to try her fortune in New York. There her talent earned her commissions and a scholarship to Cooper Union. In 1923, a grant to study art in France was rejected because of her race; her public protest gained wide support. Finally sent to Paris in 1929, she won more honors. During the Great Depression, Savage served as director of the Harlem Community Center, where she mentored many future artists. Her monumental interpretation of James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the “Negro National Anthem,” was an icon of the 1939 World's Fair.