b. Philadelphia; first African American artist to create art celebrating Afrocentric themes
Training: Philadelphia College of Art, Academie Colarossi, Paris
1899-02 in Paris, infl of W.E.B. Dubois & Henry Ossawa Tanner
1902 returned to Philadelphia
1907 federal commission for several dioramas depicting Afircan-American historical events for the Jamestown Tercentennial Exposition. First US government commission from an African American woman.
Key Works:
Emancipaton, 1913.
Training: Philadelphia College of Art, Academie Colarossi, Paris
1899-02 in Paris, infl of W.E.B. Dubois & Henry Ossawa Tanner
1902 returned to Philadelphia
1907 federal commission for several dioramas depicting Afircan-American historical events for the Jamestown Tercentennial Exposition. First US government commission from an African American woman.
Key Works:
Emancipaton, 1913.
- Fuller explained "Emancipation Group," a sculpture of a African-American man and woman standing under a tree that she executed in 1913 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation (National Emancipation Exposition), as follows: "I represented the race by a male and a female figure standing under a tree the branches of which are the fingers of Fate grasping at them to draw them back into the fateful clutches of hatred. [There is also] Humanity weeping over her suddenly freed children who, beneath the gnarled fingers of Fate, step forth into the world unafraid."
Ethiopia Awakening, 1914
- commissioned for the America’s Making Exposition, New York 1921
- ref Egyptian funerary sculpture, calling attention to African influence on Western Culture
- head: beautiful African woman w/headdress of an ancient queen of egypt: personifies womanhood and black Africa
- symbolizes the rebirth of Afrocentric consciousness, as the personification rouses herself from sleep. Although based on widely admired Egyptian funerary precedents, the groundbreaking treatment incorporates Negroid facial features.
- The figure’s lower body is bound/swaddled like mummy but Ethiopia holds the ends thus the means to set herself free of social oppression; allegorically depicts woman emerging from metaphorical sleep to animation.
- “wake up” African Americans to consciousness of nationhood and anti-colonialism; a racial and gender awakening; message of hope in a hopeless world (war/lost generation)
- anticipates the spirit and style of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920’s
Mary Turner: A Silent Protest Against Mob Violence, 1918.
- lynching victim who clutches her unborn child (also murdered), to her breast.
- re: Leon Litwack's essay "Hellhounds": a gruesome description of Mary Turner who vowed to find bring those responsible her husband's death to trial, and a brutal lynch mob attack in response. 8 months pregnant, she was hung upside down by her ankles, burned, shot, and the child cut from her. (this is the tame version)
The Talking Skull, 1937.
Legacy: Her work anticipates the Harlem Renaissance. Stylistically, obviously not earth-shattering (the Armory Show was a year before Ethiopia Awakening), but her socio-political focus is important. Lasting influence of the next generation of African American women artists.
"Correcting the Canon: the African Feminist Art of Meta Fuller"
Further reading, if needed:
Catalogue of minor exhibition (Danforth)
Regarding the Jamestown dioramas
“Afro American” 2/6/1932 article re: Emancipation
NOTE: W.E.B. DuBois: African American intellectual (Harvard) encouraged M V W Fuller to use African American imagery. He was also one of the cofounders of the NAACP. He was influential in (as far as I can tell) all her public commissions.
Alain Locke: African American philosopher who wrote “The New Negro: An Interpretation” in 1925.
- inspired by an African folk tale in which a skull warned a young man that "Tongue brought me here and if you are not careful, Tongue will bring you here." Excited by his discovery, the youth told his village about the discovery, only to be beheaded just before the skull reiterated its warning.
- An African male kneels gently in front of a skull silently communicating his thoughts, undisturbed by the gulf which separates life from death. Dramatic in its appeal to have us reason with ourselves to see our final end, the work is convincing in its symbolic traditional means of communicating the mysteries of life and death.
Legacy: Her work anticipates the Harlem Renaissance. Stylistically, obviously not earth-shattering (the Armory Show was a year before Ethiopia Awakening), but her socio-political focus is important. Lasting influence of the next generation of African American women artists.
"Correcting the Canon: the African Feminist Art of Meta Fuller"
Further reading, if needed:
Catalogue of minor exhibition (Danforth)
Regarding the Jamestown dioramas
“Afro American” 2/6/1932 article re: Emancipation
NOTE: W.E.B. DuBois: African American intellectual (Harvard) encouraged M V W Fuller to use African American imagery. He was also one of the cofounders of the NAACP. He was influential in (as far as I can tell) all her public commissions.
Alain Locke: African American philosopher who wrote “The New Negro: An Interpretation” in 1925.
interpreting_space_the_rebirth_of_mw_fuller.pdf | |
File Size: | 343 kb |
File Type: |