S1 • E7 Apr 15, 2020 11m
Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller (1877-1968), born to a Black middle class family in Philadelphia, attended the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Arts in 1897, and moved to Paris in 1899 to study sculpture for three years. There, she met French sculptor Auguste Rodin who was impressed by her powerful work, and she became known as the "sculptor of horrors" for her dark, expressive artistic renderings. When she returned to the U.S., Warrick was commissioned by W.E.B. DuBois to create art for world fairs, which would represent African American history and contributions to the country. Despite opposition from her husband and ostracism from the U.S. art scene, Fuller created revolutionary sculptures throughout the 1910s and 1920s that elevated the African American experience as a subject worthy of depiction in art. Anticipating themes of the Harlem Renaissance, her work sought to celebrate 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. Interviewees: historian Renée Ater, Associate Professor Emerita, American Art, The University of Maryland and author of Remaking Race and History: The Sculpture of Meta Warrick Fuller; and sculptor Alison Saar, whose artwork focuses on the African diaspora and Black female identity.
