Augusta Savage at the 1939 – 1940 World’s Fair
Photographs and Prints Division,
Schomburg Center for Research in
Black Culture
Augusta Savage was born in Green Cove Springs, Florida in 1892 and began sculpting as a child. She received formal training in 1921 at Cooper Union in New York City. She gained recognition for her busts of prominent Black leaders, such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey, while also making her mark as an art teacher and mentor for art students. Savage was politically active in the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and throughout the 1930s and 1940s maintained a teaching studio in Harlem. She ran many of her classes at the 135th Street Library of the New York Public Library, now the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. She won a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship for her first important work, Gamin, a plaster model of her nephew Ellis Ford. Savage founded the Savage Studio for Arts and Crafts (1932), was one of the founders of the Harlem Artists Guild (1935), and was the first director of the Harlem Community Art Center (1937). In these and other positions she influenced the careers of many now-celebrated artists, including Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, and the photographers Morgan and Marvin Smith.
Manuscripts and Archives Division,
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
In 1937, Savage was commissioned by the World’s Fair to create a work that was to commemorate and symbolize the musical contributions of African Americans. She chose the national Black anthem “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” with words by James Weldon Johnson and music by J. Rosamond Johnson, as her inspiration. Her work would become the famed sculpture, The Harp . The strings were represented by Black Americans and the soundboard was the arm and hand of God. The Harp was one of the most popular works of art at the Fair; unfortunately, it was destroyed after the Fair closed because Augusta Savage did not have funds to have it cast in bronze, or to move and store the piece.
Three divisions of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture have holdings related to Augusta Savage. The Art and Artifacts Division has a small bronze version of the original sculpture of The Harp as well as selections of her other sculptures. The Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division has her personal papers, and additional portraits and photographs of her at work are also available in the Photographs and Prints Division.
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