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For the 1939 New York World's Fair, the sculptor Augusta Savage made The Harp, a 16-foot plaster figure of Black singers standing like the strings of a harp. It became one of the fair's most photographed works, but Savage could not afford to cast it in bronze, move it or store it, and it was destroyed when the fair ended.

Augusta Savage / Smithsonian American Art Museum / National Museum of African American History and Culture

ArtHistory

The story behind the card

The sculpture's official title was Lift Every Voice and Sing, after the song by James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson that is often called the Black national anthem. Twelve singing young people, graded by height, formed the strings, and small metal souvenir copies were sold at the fair. Savage, born in Florida in 1892, had fought discrimination for years: in 1923 an American committee withdrew her place at a summer art school at Fontainebleau, in France, when it learned she was Black. In the 1930s she opened a studio school in Harlem, and in 1937 she became the first director of the Harlem Community Art Center, where some 1,500 people took part in workshops. Her students included Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis and Gwendolyn Knight.

Türkçe oku
Heykeltıraş Augusta Savage, 1939 New York Dünya Fuarı için The Harp'ı (Arp) yaptı: Siyah şarkıcıların bir arpın telleri gibi dizildiği, yaklaşık beş metrelik alçı heykel. Eser fuarın en çok fotoğraflanan yapıtlarından oldu. Ama Savage'ın onu bronza döktürmeye, taşımaya ya da saklamaya parası yetmedi; fuar bitince heykel yıkıldı.

Heykelin resmî adı Lift Every Voice and Sing'di; bu ad, James Weldon Johnson ile J. Rosamond Johnson'ın, çoğu zaman Siyahların millî marşı diye anılan şarkısından geliyordu. Arpın tellerini boy sırasına dizilmiş, şarkı söyleyen on iki genç oluşturuyordu; fuarda heykelin küçük metal kopyaları hatıra olarak satıldı. 1892'de Florida'da doğan Savage yıllardır ayrımcılıkla mücadele ediyordu: 1923'te bir Amerikan kurulu, onun Siyah olduğunu öğrenince Fransa'daki Fontainebleau yaz sanat okulunda kazandığı yeri geri aldı. Savage 1930'larda Harlem'de bir atölye okulu açtı; 1937'de de Harlem Toplum Sanat Merkezi'nin ilk müdürü oldu. Merkezin atölyelerine 1.500 kadar kişi katıldı. Öğrencileri arasında Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis ve Gwendolyn Knight da vardı.

Sources and further reading

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