Augusta Savage

Augusta Savage (February 29, 1892 – March 27, 1962) was an African-American sculptor associated with the Harlem Renaissance.

Quotes

 * I was a Leap Year baby, and it seems to me that I have been leaping ever since.
 * On the trajectory of her life and career in “Sculptor Augusta Savage Said Her Legacy Was The Work Of Her Students” in NPR (2019 Jul 15)


 * I have created nothing really beautiful, really lasting, but if I can inspire one of these youngsters to develop the talent I know they possess, then my monument will be in their work.
 * On her students being her legacy in “Augusta Savage] in SAAM


 * I hear so many complaints to the effect that Negroes do not take advantage of the educational opportunities offered them. Well, one of the reasons why more of my race do not go in for higher education is that as soon as one of us gets his head above the crowd there are millions of feet ready to crush it back again to that dead level of commonplace thus creating a racial deadline of culture in our Republic. For how am I to compete with other American artists if I am not to be given the same opportunity?
 * On being denied a scholarship due to her race in “Sculptor Augusta Savage’s Towering Impact on the Harlem Renaissance” in Artnet (2019 Apr 5)


 * He almost whipped the art out of me.
 * On her strict father trying to hinder her artistic abilities in “Sculptor Augusta Savage Said Her Legacy Was The Work Of Her Students” in NPR (2019 Jul 15)


 * Isn't it rather odd that such people should always suppose that when a colored girl gets a chance to develop her natural powers it must be that she will want to become white? It gets to be a tiresome task explaining to them that the desire to become better or more capable is a common quality of all human beings.
 * letter to the New York World newspaper (20 May 1923), included in Letters of Note: Art edited by Shaun Usher (2020)


 * We are sneered at for not being the social and intellectual equals, after sixty years of Western civilization, of people with thousands of years of this same civilization; yet when we set out to try to lessen the distance between us we are treated as if the attempt were a crime. Why not give us the chance to try? Are some white people really afraid that we might succeed?
 * letter to the New York World newspaper (20 May 1923), included in Letters of Note: Art edited by Shaun Usher (2020)