Existing comment:
Augusta Savage (1892-1962)
Lift Every Voice and Sing, ca 1939
White metal cast with a black patina
Lift Every Voice and Sing is the signature work by Harlem Renaissance leader Augusta Savage. It takes the form of a harp: twelve young black singers wear robes whose folds became the strings of the harp and stand in the hand of God.
The original 16-foot sculpture was the only commission from a black woman artist at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Despite its extraordinary popularity, it was smashed by bulldozers at the fair's close. It survives only through small-scale replicas like the one seen here. |