Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller

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Meta Warrick Fuller

Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller (born Meta Vaux Warrick, born June 9, 1877 in Philadelphia ( Pennsylvania , USA ), † March 18, 1968 in Framingham ( Massachusetts , USA)) was an African-American artist who became famous for staging Afrocentric themes. She was a versatile artist who also wrote and painted poetry, but became famous as a sculptor in particular. She made a name for herself as a sculptor in Paris and then went back to the USA. Warrick was a student of Auguste Rodin and has been described as "one of the most imaginative black artists of her generation". She created work with strong social content, such as a sculpture of Mary Turner, a young woman, black, married and pregnant who was lynched herself the day after her protest against her husband's lynching in Georgia in 1918 .

childhood

Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Ethiopia Awakening , bronze sculpture, 1910
Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Mary Turner, painted plaster sculpture, 1919

Meta Vaux Warrick was born in Philadelphia in 1877. Her mother Emma, ​​b. Jones, was a beautician and her father, William H. Warrick, was a barber. Both were influential figures in Philadelphia's African American society. Meta Vaux is named after the daughter of Senator Richard Vaux , a customer of her mother's.

Philadelphia's large black community had already established itself by then and was socially and intellectually active. At the beginning of the 20th century, thousands of black people came from the rural south. As a result, the number of black organizations and institutions in Philadelphia grew. Education, culture, and social activities were encouraged and expected in Warrick's family. Meta received training in art, music, dance and horse riding. She was one of the few selected from Philadelphia public schools for J. Liberty Tadd's Art School. Warrick's artistic training had already started at home. Her father was interested in sculpture and painting. Her older sister, who later became a beautician like her mother, was also interested in art and worked with clay, which Meta could experiment with. Her brother and grandfather fascinated her with their endless horror stories. These influences partly shaped her sculptures when she finally developed as an internationally trained artist who also became known as the Sculptor of Terror .

artistic education

Warrick began her career as an artist after one of her high school projects for inclusion in the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago was chosen. Because of this work, she received a scholarship to the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art (PMSIA) (now the Art School of Art and Design), where her talent for sculpture was promoted. She did not want to limit herself to the traditional "female" themes and created works that were influenced by the cruel imagery of the literature and painting of the Fin de Siècle . In 1898 she received her diploma and her teacher certificate.

After graduation, Warrick traveled to Paris , where she studied with Raphaël Collin . She studied as a sculptor at the Académie Colarossi and as a draftsman at the École des Beaux-Arts . Warrick faced racial discrimination at the American Women's Club in Paris when she was refused accommodation despite having made reservations prior to arrival. The African-American painter Henry Ossawa Tanner , a painter and friend of the family, found her a place to stay and introduced her to his friends. He became her main mentor while studying in Paris.

Warrick's work became more expressive in Paris, where she studied until 1902. Influenced by Auguste Rodin , whose student she became in 1902, it represented the spirituality of human suffering. Rodin said to her: "My child, you are a sculptor. You have the feeling for form in your fingers".

In Paris, Warrick Fuller met the American sociologist WEB DuBois , who remained a lifelong friend and confidante. He encouraged Warrick to orientate herself on African and Afro-American topics in her work. By the end of her time in Paris she was well known and had already exhibited her work in many galleries.

Samuel Bing , patron of Aubrey Beardsley , Mary Cassatt and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec also recognized their skills and organized a solo exhibition for them at his Salon de l'Art Nouveau (Maison de l'Art Nouveau) . In 1903, shortly before Warrick returned to the United States, two of her works, The Wretched and The Impenitent Thief , were exhibited at the Salon de Paris .

When she returned to Philadelphia in 1903, Warrick Fuller was shunned by members of the art scene because of her race because her art was considered "domestic".

artist

Meta Warrick Fuller: Dark Hero

Warrick Fuller created works from her African American life experience that were revolutionary. They represented art, nature, religion and nation. She is considered the forerunner of the Harlem Renaissance , a movement active in New York of Afro-Americans who created art of various genres, an Afro-American art scene. The Danforth Museum in Framingham, which has a large collection of her work, says Warrick Fuller "is widely recognized as one of the first African-American female sculptors."

Warrick Fuller, who was very devout, created at least one religious work of art each year. But she also designed more literary sculptures or portraits. Although she herself said that she couldn't specialize in African American types, Warrick Fuller became an important chronicler of the everyday life experiences of blacks in the United States. Warrick Fuller is known for her sculptures depicting the crises and sadness of African American life. These include Mary Turner , Talking Skull, and especially Ethiopia Awakening. Ethiopia Awakening is the sculpture of an African woman who bursts out of a cocoon and represents the blacks in the USA. Mary Turner was her protest against the lynching of a young, black, pregnant woman in Lowndes County , Georgia . Her contemporary Angelina Weld Grimké wrote the short story Goldie , which describes this murder. Talking Skull addresses questions of life and death in the context of an African fairy tale.

In 1910 a warehouse in Philadelphia where she kept her works and her tools burned down. She lost many works that she had created over the past 16 years. The losses were also emotionally devastating to her.

Exhibitions

1907 Jamestown Tercentennial

Warrick Fuller was the first African American woman to receive a US government commission in 1907: She created a series of tableaus depicting historical African American events for the Jamestown Tercentennial Exposition in Norfolk, Virginia. The tableaus also included fourteen dioramas and 130 painted plaster figures depicting scenes of slaves, such as their arrival in Virginia in 1617, but also the simple life of blacks. Each scene consisted of painted plaster figures and extensive painted backdrops. The 14 tableaus showed the landing of the first slaves in Jamestown, slaves at work in a cotton field, a fugitive slave in hiding, a meeting of the first African Methodist Episcopal Church , a slave defending his owner's house during the Civil War, freed slaves who are building their own homes, an independent black farmer, builder and entrepreneur, a black businessman and banker, scenes in a modern African American house, church and school, and finally a black man's college admission. The historian W. Fitzhugh Brundage said that Fuller's tableaus represent the enhancement of black skills, their aspirations and experiences, they are a convincing alternative to the white representation of history. Warricks Fuller's Tableaux were featured prominently in the Negro Building , where they occupied 15,000 square feet. For her work on the tableaus, Warrick Fuller was awarded a gold medal by the exhibition directors.

Other exhibitions

Warrick Fuller exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1906, 1908 and 1920 .

In 1921 she created one of her most famous works, Ethiopia, for the America's Making Exhibition . This event was designed to highlight the contributions of immigrants to US arts and culture. The sculpture was shown in the Colored Section of the exhibition and symbolized a new black identity that also emerged in the Harlem Renaissance . It represented the pride of African Americans in their African and Black heritage and identity.

In 1922 Fuller showed her sculptures in the Boston Public Library . Her work was shown in an exhibition for the Tanner League held in the studios of Dunbar High School in Washington, DC . took place. In the following period she was not as recognized as in her time in Paris, but she continued to exhibit her work. Her last exhibition was in 1961 at Howard University in Washington, DC

family

In 1907 Warrick married the well-known doctor Solomon Carter Fuller. He was of Liberian descent and one of the first black psychiatrists in the United States. When they married, he was a member of the pathology department at Westborough State Hospital in Westborough, Massachusetts. The couple settled in Framingham , Massachusetts in 1910 and had three sons.

White neighbors resented the black family. They petitioned her to evict her and banned her from the neighborhood. Warrick Fuller then left her church. After the fire in 1910, she built a studio behind her house. Her husband did not support her in her artistic work. She formed many traditional religious scenes during this period. Although she had left the church, she continued to be interested in religious subjects.

Solomon Fuller died in 1953. Their son Robert Fuller worked for some time as a teacher at Framingham High School .

Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller died on March 13, 1968 at Cardinal Cushing Hospital in Framingham, Massachusetts.

Late recognition

Warrick Fuller's work has attracted renewed interest since the late 20th century. Her work was shown in a traveling exhibition at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento in 1988, along with works by Aaron Douglas, Palmer C. Hayden and James Van Der Zee . Her work was also shown in a traveling exhibition entitled Three Generations of African American Women Sculptors: A Study in Paradox in Georgia in 1998 .

The Danforth Museum in Framingham has a large collection of Warrick Fuller's sculptures. Many were shown in a solo retrospective from November 2008 to May 2009.

poetry

Her poem "Departure" was part of a collection published in 1991 under the title Now is Your Time! The African-American Struggle for Freedom was published .

The time is near (reluctance laid aside)
I see the barque afloat upon the ebbing tide
While on the shores my friends and loved ones stand.
I wave to them a cheerful parting hand,
Then take my place with Charon at the helm,
And turn and wave again to them.
Oh, may the voyage not be arduous nor long,
But echoing with chant and joyful song,
May I behold with reverence and grace,
The wondrous vision of the master's face.

Work

  • Bacchante, painted plaster sculpture, 1930
  • Bust of a young boy , painted plaster figure
  • Danse Macabre , painted plaster figure
  • Dark Hero
  • Ethiopia, painted plaster figure, around 1921
  • Ethiopia Awakening, bronze sculpture, 1914
  • Emancipation , plaster figure, 1913; in bronze, 1999
  • Henry Gilbert, painted plaster sculpture, 1928
  • Jason, painted plaster figure, Danforth Museum
  • Les Miserables, bronze sculpture, Maryhill Museum of Art, Goldendale , Washington
  • Lazy Bones , 1930
  • Lazy Bones in the Shade, painted plaster figure, ca.1937
  • Man Eating His Heart or Secret Sorrow, painted plaster figure, ca.1900
  • Mary Turner (A Silent Protest Against Mob Violence), painted plaster figure, 1919, Museum of Afro-American History, Boston, Massachusetts
  • Mold for Crusaders for Freedom , undated
  • Mother and Child, Bronze Imprint, 1962, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Phyllis Wheatley (1753-1784) , painted plaster figure, 1925
  • Refugee, painted plaster figure, 1940
  • Reverie , plasticine, not dated
  • Self portrait , unfired clay, not dated
  • Storytime , painted plaster figure, 1961
  • Talking Skull, bronze sculpture, 1937, Museum of Afro-American History, Boston, Massachusetts
  • Te Adoremus Domine , painted plaster picture , not dated
  • The Good Shepherd, painted plaster figure, ca.1926
  • The Waterboy II, painted plaster figure, 1930

Left

literature

  • Harriet Forte Kennedy: An Independen Woman: The Life and Art of Meta Warrick Fuller (1877-1968) (exhibition catalog Danforth Museum), 1984.
  • Renée Ater: Remaking Race and History: The Sculpture of Meta Warrick Fuller , Berkeley, University of California Press 2011, ISBN 9780520262126 .
  • Mary Schmidt Campbell: Harlem Renaissance: Art of Black America , New York 1987, ISBN 0-8109-1099-3 .
  • Kathy A. Perkins: The Genius of Meta Warrick Fuller , in: Black American Literature Forum 1990, 24/1, pp. 65-72.
  • Caitlin Beach: Meta Warrick Fuller's Mary Turner and The Memory of Mob Violence , in: Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, Durham NC No. 36/2015, pp. 16-27, ISSN 1075-7163.
  • Helene Kirschke: Women Artists of the Harlem Renaissance , Jackson 2014, ISBN 978-1-62846-033-9 .
  • Shonnette Koontz: A collection of the life an work of Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller: 1877 - 1968 , Wes Virginia State College 2003.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ American National Biography Online: Fuller, Meta Vaux Warrick . Retrieved March 11, 2017.
  2. ^ A b c Arna Alexander Bontemps and Jacqueline Fonvielle-Bontemps: African-American Women Artists: An Historical Perspective. Black Feminist Cultural Criticism. Keyworks in Cultural Studies 133–137. Blackwell, Malden, Massachusetts 2001, ISBN 0-631-22239-1 , pp. 133-137 .
  3. ^ A b Judith Nina Kerr: God-given work: The Life and Times of Sculptor Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, 1877 - 1968 (Pennsylvania). 1986, accessed May 7, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b c Fuller, Meta Vaux Warren . In: Barbara Sichtermann and Carol Hurd Green: Notable American Women: The Modern Period; a Biographical Dictionary . Harvard University Press, ISBN 978-0-674-62733-8 , pp. 255 .
  5. ^ A b Sandra West: Fuller, Meta Vaux Warrick . In: Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance . New York 2003.
  6. ^ Meta Warrick Fuller (1877-1968) • BlackPast. In: BlackPast. March 12, 2007, Retrieved May 7, 2019 (American English).
  7. ^ A b c Theresa A. Leiniger-Miller: New Negro Artists in Paris: African-American Painters and Sculptors in the City of Light, 1922-1934 . Rutgers University Press, 2001, pp. 9 .
  8. ↑ a b c d e f g Femi Lewis: How is Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller's "Ethiopia Awakening" a symbol of the Harlem Renaissance? August 17, 2017, accessed May 7, 2019 .
  9. ^ A b c Giles B. Jackson and D. Webster Davis: The Industrial History of the Negro Race of the United States. 1908, accessed May 8, 2019 .
  10. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k In the Studio: The Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller Collection - Danforth. Retrieved May 9, 2019 .
  11. ^ Crisis, XXXII, 6 (October 1926), p. 246.
  12. ↑ Julie Buckner Armstrong: The People ... Took Exception to Her Remarks: Meta Warrick Fuller, Angelina Weld Grimke, and the Lynching of Mary Turner . In: The Mississippi Quarterly . 2008.
  13. ↑ Talking Skull - Fuller, Meta Vaux Warrick (1877-1968). Retrieved May 9, 2019 .
  14. ^ A b W. Fitzhugh Brundage: Meta Warrick's 1907 'Negro Tableaux' and (Re) presenting African American Historical Memory . In: The Journal of American History . No. 89 (4) , March 2003, p. 1368-1400 .
  15. ^ Renée Ater: Making History: Meta Warrick Fuller's "Ethiopia" . In: American Art . No. 17 (3) , 2003, pp. 12-31 , JSTOR : 1215807 .
  16. ^ Patrick Manning: The African Diaspora: A History Through Culture . Columbia University Press, New York 2009, ISBN 978-0-231-14471-1 , pp. 211 .
  17. ^ Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller. In: More Women Artists. November 30, 2015. Retrieved May 9, 2019 (American English).
  18. ↑ a b Uncrowned Queen: Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller. May 28, 2010, accessed May 8, 2019 .
  19. ^ African American Registry: Meta VW Fuller, sculptor of Black themes. . March 17, 2008, accessed May 8, 2019 .
  20. ↑ Mark van Proyen: Trail Blazers in Harlem . In: Artweek . No. 19 (1) , 1988.
  21. ^ HW Wilson: African American Women Sculptors . In: American Art Review . No. 10 , 1998, pp. 162-165 .
  22. ↑ Walter Dean Myers: Now Is Your Time! The African-American Struggle for Freedom . 1991.
  23. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Meta Warrick Fuller. In: Collections Search Center, Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved May 8, 2019 .
  24. ^ Meta Warrick Fuller, Ethiopia Awakening 1914. In: National Humanities Center. Retrieved May 9, 2019 .
  25. ↑ Man Eating His Heart or Secret Sorrow, ca.1900 Roots and Routes: Art of the African Diaspora. Retrieved May 9, 2019 .
  26. ^ In Memory of Mary Turner: As a Silent Protest Against Mob Violence - Fuller, Meta Vaux Warrick (1877-1968). Retrieved May 9, 2019 .
  27. ^ Aline Kaplan: Black History Month: Eight Boston Statues. In: The Next Phase Blog. February 8, 2018, Retrieved May 9, 2019 (American English).
personal data
SURNAME Fuller, Meta Vaux Warrick
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Warrick, Meta Vaux (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION African American sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH June 9, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Philadelphia
DATE OF DEATH March 18, 1968
Place of death Framingham