Augusta Fells Savage (1882 - 1962)
sculptor, teacher
photo by Morgan & Marvin Smith, 1936

Augusta Fells was born in Florida. She began modeling clay figures as a child against her father's wishes. He took literally the biblical admonition against making graven images.

She attended Tallahassee State National School, married James Savage and had a daughter. One of her clay figures won a prize at a county fair and, thus inspired, she raised money to go to New York to get training as an artist. She entered a free art program at Cooper Union in 1921 and supported herself by taking in laundry.

She was turned down for a summer art program by the French government in 1923 because of her color. She brought this issue to the public's attention and caused quite an uproar. She never received the scholarship, but she received an offer to study with the sculptor Herman MacNeil. This incident brought attention to the discrimination African-American artists faced in this country. However, she was seen as a troublemaker.

Savage became known as a portrait sculptor. She portrayed W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Frederick Douglass, James Weldon Johnson and other African-American leaders. She continued to exhibit and eventually won a Rosenwald Fellowship to study in Europe. Upon her return in 1932, she established the Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts. She was a great influence on several artists who later became nationally recognized, such as Jacob Lawrence.

Augusta Savage was a dedicated teacher who put her own work aside in order to encourage gifted children. She was appointed director of the Harlem Community Art Center in 1937, and helped to organize the Harlem Arts Guild. In 1939, she was commissioned for the New York World's Fair to produce a sculpture. She created one of her major works, "The Harp," based on James and J. Rosamond Johnson's song, "Lift Every Voice and Sing." It is pictured under construction in her studio. The work was exhibited adjacent to the Contemporary Arts Building. It was, unfortunately, destroyed when the fair was over. Shortly afterward Augusta Savage left Harlem and maintained a studio in Saugerties, New York, where she continued to work and teach.

Of her work with children, she said, "If I can inspire one of these youngsters to develop the talent I know they possess, then my monument will be in their work."
.

(the only one of the collages I was able to upload, although my favourite is Summertime which looks like it was created 5 minutes ago it is so 'now'. It's well worth looking through the website - also has activities for children)

Romare Bearden

Romare Howard Bearden was born on September 2, 1911, to (Richard) Howard and Bessye Bearden in Charlotte, North Carolina, and died in New York City on March 12, 1988, at the age of 76. His life and art are marked by exceptional talent, encompassing a broad range of intellectual and scholarly interests, including music, performing arts, history, literature and world art. Bearden was also a celebrated humanist, as demonstrated by his lifelong support of young, emerging artists.

Romare Bearden began college at Lincoln University, transferred to Boston University and completed his studies at New York University (NYU), graduating with a degree in education. While at NYU, Bearden took extensive courses in art and was a lead cartoonist and then art editor for the monthly journal The Medley. He had also been art director of Beanpot, the student humor magazine of Boston University. Bearden published many journal covers during his university years and the first of numerous texts he would write on social and artistic issues. He also attended the Art Students League in New York and later, the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1935, Bearden became a weekly editorial cartoonist for the Baltimore Afro-American, which he continued doing until 1937.

After joining the Harlem Artists Guild, Bearden embarked on his lifelong study of art, gathering inspiration from Western masters ranging from Duccio, Giotto and de Hooch to Cezanne, Picasso and Matisse, as well as from African art (particularly sculpture, masks and textiles), Byzantine mosaics, Japanese prints and Chinese landscape paintings.

Bearden graduated from New York University with a degree in education, but almost immediately began working as a cartoonist for publications that included Collier's and the Saturday Evening Post. He studied under German artist George Grosz at the Art Students' League in 1936 and 1937. Shortly thereafter he began the first of his stints as a case worker for the New York Department of Social Services. During World War II, Bearden was in the US Army, serving from 1942 until 1945. During the 1940's, his style combined African culture and symbols with a stylized realism. Paintings such as his 1948, The Family demonstrate his interest in cubism and the influence that the style had on his work. After a stay in Paris, Bearden's work became more abstract, using layers of oil paint to produce muted, hidden effects. During the 1960's civil rights movement, his focus shifted again, to collage, considered his best work. An excellent example is his 1963 series of collages, Prevalence of Ritual.

From the mid-1930s through 1960s, Bearden was a social worker with the New York City Department of Social Services, working on his art at night and on weekends. His success as an artist was recognized with his first solo exhibition in Harlem in 1940 and his first solo show in Washington, DC, in 1944. Bearden was a prolific artist whose works were exhibited during his lifetime throughout the United States and Europe. His collages, watercolors, oils, photomontages and prints are imbued with visual metaphors from his past in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Pittsburgh and Harlem and from a variety of historical, literary and musical sources.

In 1954, Bearden married Nanette Rohan, with whom he spent the rest of his life. In the early 1970s, he and Nanette established a second residence on the Caribbean island of St. Martin, his wife's ancestral home, and some of his later work reflected the island's lush landscapes. Among his many friends, Bearden had close associations with such distinguished artists, intellectuals and musicians as James Baldwin, Stuart Davis, Duke Ellington, Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, Joan Miró, George Grosz, Alvin Ailey and Jacob Lawrence.

Bearden was also a respected writer and an eloquent spokesman on artistic and social issues of the day. Active in many arts organizations, in 1964 Bearden was appointed the first art director of the newly established Harlem Cultural Council, a prominent African-American advocacy group. He was involved in founding several important art venues, such as The Studio Museum in Harlem and the Cinque Gallery. Initially funded by the Ford Foundation, Bearden and the artists Norman Lewis and Ernest Crichlow established Cinque to support younger minority artists. Bearden was also one of the founding members of the Black Academy of Arts and Letters in 1970 and was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1972.

Recognized as one of the most creative and original visual artists of the twentieth century, Romare Bearden had a prolific and distinguished career. He experimented with many different mediums and artistic styles, but is best known for his richly textured collages, two of which appeared on the covers of Fortune and Time magazines, in 1968. An innovative artist with diverse interests, Bearden also designed costumes and sets for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and programs, sets and designs for Nanette Bearden's Contemporary Dance Theatre.

Among Bearden's numerous publications are: A History of African American Artists: From 1792 to the Present, which was coauthored with Harry Henderson and published posthumously in 1993; The Caribbean Poetry of Derek Walcott and the Art of Romare Bearden (1983); Six Black Masters of American Art, coauthored with Harry Henderson (1972); The Painter's Mind: A Study of the Relations of Structure and Space in Painting, coauthored with Carl Holty (1969); and Li'l Dan, the Drummer Boy: A Civil War Story, a children's book published posthumously in September 2003.

Bearden's work is included in many important public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and The Studio Museum in Harlem, among others. He has had retrospectives at the Mint Museum of Art (1980), the Detroit Institute of the Arts (1986), as well as numerous posthumous retrospectives, including The Studio Museum in Harlem (1991) and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (2003).

Bearden was the recipient of many awards and honors throughout his lifetime. Honorary doctorates were given by Pratt Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Davidson College and Atlanta University, to name but a few. He received the Mayor's Award of Honor for Art and Culture in New York City in 1984 and the National Medal of Arts, presented by President Ronald Reagan, in 1987.


http://www.beardenfoundation.org/artlife/beardensart/beardensart.shtml

here is Romare Howard Bearden's collage, Engagement.

this was created in 1967, and is one of my favourites, Summertime

From the wonderful book/project Imagining Ourselves, about contemporary women 20-30 with something to say, either through personal expression of the arts.



KEINA DAVIS ELSWICK ~ USA

Keina Davis Elswick has been painting since she was seven years old. Early on, she made a promise to herself that she would be able to support herself with her art by age thirty. Despite doubts and fears expressed by friends an eachers, she achieved this goal by age 26.

"I am a young African American female painter married to a white male. My relationship itself is a possiblity that was open to me that was not accepted in my mother's or grandmother's generation.

I describe my work as urban folklore. The images meld contemporary African American urban culture and history with traditional African culture. All of these creations are centered on an individual's journey to Sivad.

In my work, Sivad represents not only a ficticious urban village to which people travel physcially, but an internal, spiritual journey to reach a higher consciousness.

Each painting reflects an essential moment in an individual's journey. Ancestor spirits, represented by blue figures or blue light, help guide these people as they travel day to day in search of Sivad.

My work is inspired by the stories of people around me - whether it is what I saw when my eyes briefly connected with those of an old woman while walking down Mission Street or the feeling I got when I talked to a single mother struggling to raise three children.

Storytelling has been defined as an oral tradition, folklore passed on through generations of people through speech, by the "tellers." In the tradition of an African griot, I pass on the stories of everyday people.

Rather than telling the stories verbally, I am sharing them visually - on canvas. I want these stories to be available to my generation as well as generations to come. These stories deserve a place in history too."

http://www.sivadart.com/intro.html [the page is slow to load but is the best online reference I could find]

NAOMI WANJIKU ~ KENYA



Naomi Wanjiku has worked with fibers and fabrics ever since she was a child. Her grandmother's friends were basket weavers, and from them she learned to use the local materails to make migiyo (fibers in the Kikuyu language). She received formal art and design training at the University of Nairobi and the University of California, where she did her graduate work.

"As a generation of women, we have limitless possibilities, and we should all learn to map our journey and identify those possibilities.

Once we have made achievements as individuals, it will dawn on us that we are all one large, beautiful quilt, made of individual stitches.

Stitches represent unhurried action. Our journey into the future should be unhurried; it should be one of perseverance, dedication, and love.

As we move forward, we should embrace one another and have an underlying understanding of the spirit of sisterhood.

We are branches borne of strong trees. These branches have no boundaries. We float in the sky, taking in the breeze and the sunshine. We, the branches, are able to reach far and wide."


Naomi Wanjiku lives in Dallas, Texas with her husband, a research scientist, and two sons. She states that, "There are many reasons for us to be interested in the arts of Africa, supreme among them being the need to eliminate cultural illiteracy. Cultural literacy pays off in the formulation of reasonable opinions and policies that affect all African peoples."
"Art and the creative process are an integral part of my life. I studied under several informal masters from an early age. At the University of Nairobi in my homeland Kenya, I began to develop the style and philosophy of my art and to focus mainly on fabric design. I feel compelled to use my professional background as a resource to enlighten the American society on the expressions of Africa."

A gurlfriend is travelling through London right now - lucky her!! - and mentioned these free exhibitions at the Horniman Museum... there are some online resources as well.


AFRICAN WORLDS

The first permanent exhibition in Britain dedicated to African art and culture, African Worlds celebrates the continent's diversity, history and creativity. It brings together a rich mixture of sculpture and decorative arts explained through the voices of elders, maskers, drummers, diviners, artists, exiles, curators and anthropologists. Objects from across Africa are displayed from Egypt to Zimbabwe, and from African related cultures including Brazil and Trinidad.

Highlights include masterpieces of the bronze casters art from Benin which depict the arrival of the first Europeans to Africa, and the spectacular Igbo Ijele, Africa's largest mask, and the only one of its kind on display in Britain.

The Ijele sits alongside other impressive Dogon and Bwa masks from Mali and Burkina Faso which themselves tower up to five metres high.

The gallery also features three religious altars from Benin, Haiti and Brazil which reveal an insight into non Western religious beliefs and draw parallels between African societies.

One of the most popular displays is dedicated to Kemet (Ancient Egypt) and showcases Egyptian mummies and other artefacts collected by Frederick Horniman.


Ijele mask from Nigeria

http://www.horniman.ac.uk/exhibitions/current_exhibition.php?exhib_id=16

AMAZON TO CARIBBEAN



Discover the sumptuous wonders of the Amazon and Caribbean in this major groundbreaking exhibition.

Following a journey of early cultural links and peoples from the Rainforests through to beautiful Caribbean islands, be inspired by exquisite headdresses, jaguar skin belts and anaconda themed textiles.

Stunning cultural artefacts and archaeological finds, many of which have never been on display before, are accompanied by contemporary work from leading Caribbean artists including Aubrey Williams, to portray the Amerindian spirit as a force that continues to endure in a rapidly transforming world. This exhibition looks at the culture and identity of an area steeped in history yet very much alive today.

The exhibition has been supported by the MLA through Renaissance London, and the Designation Challenge Fund and Arts Council England

http://www.horniman.ac.uk/amazon/

Kehinde Wiley!

I fell in love with his St. Francis of Paola when I first saw it a few years ago. (See attachment.) Wiley also did the portraits for Vh1's Hip-Hop Honors awards show a couple of years ago.

I don't know how to talk about art really, I just know what I like. What I like about his work is how he takes your average brother from around the way (he literally plucks them off the streets of Harlem!) and sort of superimposes them onto iconographic settings. It's like a hip-hop-Renaissance mash-up. The young men wear street gear, e.g. hoodies, sports jerseys, baseball caps. And instead of painting them in urban settings he incorporate a bit of the Baroque style. I really like this one:



He's done a series of equestrain paintings also, that are really dynamite!

See him in action at youtube.com

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Santana St. Cloud,

***********************************

“It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” -- James Baldwin

k_wiley2m.jpg (60 Kb, 10 downloads)

this is a beautiful piece of art msprettygirl, thanks for sharing.

The 'spoon-fed' bible pic reminds me of some drawings I did about christianity... my take of "let us pray" was more like them saying "let us prey".
.

quote:

Originally posted by FireFly:
this is a beautiful piece of art msprettygirl, thanks for sharing.

The 'spoon-fed' bible pic reminds me of some drawings I did about christianity... my take of "let us pray" was more like them saying "let us prey".
.

hum...I'd like to see that drawing