But if I can inspire one of these youngsters to develop the talent I know that they possess, then my monument will be their work. Tammi Lawson: She said: I have created nothing really beautiful, really lasting. So it‘s just so many different artists who are prominent now who came through her school.Īnna Deavere Smith: For Savage, that’s what really mattered. Norman Lewis, a famous abstract artist, is her student. Tammi Lawson: Jacob Lawrence is her student. In the 1930s, she established an art school in Harlem, at the 135th Street branch library-now the home of the Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Only rare bronze souvenirs like this remain.īut Savage was more interested in her educational legacy than in physical monuments. So it was like a clarion call.Īnna Deavere Smith: Sadly, the original sculpture was destroyed when the Fair ended, along with most of the other temporary structures. Tammi Lawson: “Lift Every Voice and Sing” is the title of what was then called the “Negro National Anthem.”Īnd it goes, ”Lift every voice and sing ’til earth and heaven ring, ring with the harmony of liberty.” And it goes on. Schomburg Curator of Art and Artifacts, Tammi Lawson: Savage called her work Lift Every Voice and Sing. She crafted the massive sculpture from painted plaster because she could not afford bronze. Artist Augusta Savage created the work to celebrate African American contributions to music. That’s what visitors to the 1939 World’s Fair saw. Rosamond Johnson.Īnna Deavere Smith: Imagine this sculpture towering over you, its robed figures standing 16 feet tall. Music: “Lift Every Voice and Sing” by James Weldon Johnson and J. He stoops to hold in front of his knees a rectangular music book, or plaque, with the words “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” He wears loose trousers and is bare from the waist up. He is in front of the foremost, and tallest, of the singers and facing in the same direction as them. Given the upward curve of the sounding board, the upper figures become increasingly small as they approach the fingertips of the cupped hand.Īt the front of the harp, on its oval base, is a kneeling figure of a Black boy. The sounding board of the harp-that’s the curved structure where the strings attach at the base-is in the shape of a forearm and hand, holding the standing figures. Some have their faces turned slightly outward as they sing. The figures stand closely one behind the other. The heads show mouths open as if in song. Their bodies are shown as simplified sweeping forms as if in long robes, hands behind their backs. Instead of strings, the harp has the standing figures of twelve Black singers. This small model in bronze is in the shape of a harp. About 11 inches high by 3 inches wide by 7 inches deep. Narrator: Lift Every Voice and Sing ( The Harp).
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