“My work is of the soul, rather than the figure, and sometimes the figure must be very crude in order to carry the full strength of the spiritual meaning.”

– Meta Warrick Fuller

Meta Warrick Fuller’s Story

Meta Warrick Fuller was born to a middle-class African American family in Philadelphia on June 9, 1877. Warrick Fuller received a scholarship to attend the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Arts, now the University of the Arts, where she was one of just a few Black students. Encouraged by her sculpture teacher, in 1899, Warrick Fuller moved to Paris, where African Americans faced fewer restrictions to attend art academies than in the U.S.

Although she still faced racism abroad, her years in Paris were formative for her as a sculptor. There, she created art for the 1900 Paris World’s Fair, and met French sculptor Auguste Rodin, who was impressed by her powerful work. She became known as the “sculptor of horrors” for her dark, expressive artistic renderings, which were often inspired by folklore and mythology. 

When she returned to the U.S., Warrick Fuller was commissioned by noted scholar W.E.B. DuBois to create sculptures to represent African American history and contributions to the country. Her work was exhibited in the designated “Negro areas” of several world’s fairs. In 1907, Warrick Fuller became the first African American woman to receive a federal art commission, when she was asked to create a piece for the 300th anniversary of the Jamestown Virginia Settlement. 

Warrick Fuller created revolutionary sculptures throughout the 1910s and 1920s that elevated the African American experience as a subject worthy of depiction in art, at a time when African Americans were typically depicted in stereotypical and demeaning ways in art and media. Her work also captured the African American experience of the time, for instance, her sculpture Mary Turner: A Silent Protest Against Mob Violence was a tribute to the 1917 Silent Parade in protest of lynching, organized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Despite losing 16 years of artwork in a fire, and facing opposition from her husband, Warrick Fuller continued to create influential sculptures throughout her life. Her work anticipated themes of the Harlem Renaissance, celebrating African heritage and African American cultural identity. Late in her career, in the 1960s, she wrote poetry and created sculptural tributes to the Civil Rights Movement.

Warrick Fuller died on March 18, 1968, at age 91. In 1998, her sculpture Emancipation was cast in bronze and installed as a public monument in Boston’s Harriet Tubman Square. Her sculpture Ethiopia is now displayed at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.

Featured in the Film

Renée Ater

Renée Ater is Associate Professor Emerita of American Art at the University of Maryland, and author of Remaking Race and History: The Sculpture of Meta Warrick Fuller. She holds a B.A. in art history from Oberlin College (1987); a M.A. in art history from the University of Maryland (1993); and a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Maryland (2000). Her research and writing have largely focused on the intersection of race, monument building, and national identity. Renée is currently researching, designing, and writing a digital project entitled Contemporary Monuments to the Slave Past: Race, Memorialization, Public Space, and Civic Engagement.

Alison Saar

Alison Saar is a Los Angeles-based sculptor, mixed-media, and installation artist. Her artwork focuses on the African diaspora and black female identity and is influenced by African, Caribbean, and Latin American folk art and spirituality. She has had solo exhibitions at Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C., the Brooklyn Museum, High Museum in Atlanta, OMI International Arts Center in Ghent, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Springfield Art Museum, UCLA’s Fowler Museum of Cultural History, and Santa Monica Museum of Art. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the New Museum in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Getty Center in Los Angeles, the Studio Museum in Harlem, among many other institutions. Saar has been awarded many distinguished grants, honors, and residencies including awards from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation.

Her Life & Times

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Sources

Books & Articles

Remaking Race and History: The Sculpture of Meta Warrick Fuller by Renée Ater Ahttps://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520262126/remaking-race-and-history

“Making History: Meta Warrick Fuller’s ‘Ethiopia’” by Renée Ater,  American Art, Vol. 17, No. 3. (Autumn, 2003) https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5acf8bf7a9e028b9d3e33f81/t/5e4af73ba78e4d69b890572a/1581971270825/rater_fuller_ethiopia.pdf

“Meta Warrick’s 1907 ‘Negro Tableaux’ and (Re)Presenting African American Historical Memory by W. Fitzhugh Brundage,” The Journal of American History, Vol. 89, No. 4 (Mar., 2003), Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of Organization of American Historians https://www.jstor.org/stable/3092547

“The Genius of Meta Warrick Fuller” by Kathy A. Perkins, Black American Literature Forum, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Spring, 1990), Published by: African American Review (St. Louis University: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2904066

“Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller: Her Life and Her Art” by Velma J. Hoove, Negro History Bulletin, Vol. 40, No. 2 (March-April, 1977), Published by: Association for the Study of African American Life and History: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44176711

 

Online Resources

Black Past: Meta Warrick Fuller: https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/fuller-meta-warrick-1877-1968/

Danforth Art Museum’s Digital Collection of Meta Warrick Fuller’s Artwork: https://danforth.framingham.edu/exhibition/meta-fuller/

The National Museum of African American History and Culture: Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Ethiopia, 1921: https://nmaahc.si.edu/meta-vaux-warrick-fuller-ethiopia-1921 

“Meta Warrick Fuller,” Framingham History Center.: https://framinghamhistory.org/biographies/meta-warrick-fuller-1877-1968/

Google Arts & Culture: Meta Warrick Fuller: https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/meta-vaux-warrick-fuller/m0djyww?hl=en 

U Arts University Libraries: Meta Warrick Fuller: https://library.uarts.edu/archives/alumni/warrickfuller.html

African American Registry: Meta Warrick Fuller: https://aaregistry.org/story/meta-v-w-fuller-sculptor-of-black-themes/ 

The Art Story, which features African American artists of the 19th century who had an influence on the Harlem Renaissance, with information on art of the Harlem Renaissance: https://www.theartstory.org/movement/harlem-renaissance/history-and-concepts/

Encyclopedia: Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller: https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/historians-miscellaneous-biographies/meta-vaux-warrick-fuller 

“An Artist Finds Inspiration in Women of Color Throughout History,” by Tess Thackara, The New York Times, June 19, 2018: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/t-magazine/firelei-baez-art.html

“I Wanted to Make Art that Told a Story”: Alison Saar on Her Eloquent Sculptures By HyperAllergic: https://hyperallergic.com/440597/i-wanted-to-make-art-that-told-a-story-alison-saar-on-her-eloquent-sculptures/

 

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