60
●
AUGUSTA SAVAGE (1892 - 1962)
Nude Torso
.
Painted plaster, mounted on a wood base, circa 1931-35.Approximately 406x228x228 mm; 16
1
/
4
x9x9
inches (not including base).
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist; Edythe Williams Scott, NewYork; thence by descent
to the current owner, private collection, South Carolina.The young model who posed for the artist
was gifted the sculpture, and it has remained in her family for more than 80 years.
EdytheWilliams Scott, the model, was an accomplished designer, artist, and educator who had a life-
long association with the arts. Her family moved from Florida to Harlem in 1917, and her artistic
talents were soon recognized while she was at the Textile High School at 124 West 30th Street.
A 1921
EveningWorld
newspaper article describes how she won the national design competition
Good
Taste in Dress forYoung Girls
at the age of 17. In 1924, Mrs. Scott won a scholarship to the NewYork
School of Fine Arts; an award that was withdrawn when school officials discovered that she was
African-American. She was a founding member of the Art Students Club, exhibiting in Harlem
during the Renaissance, and studied under Augusta Savage at the Savage School of Arts and Crafts.
She graduated from the State University of NewYork at Oswego with a Bachelor of Arts degree in
economics. Mrs. Scott was the first African-American and first female vocational teacher to be
appointed to McKee High School, where she taught commercial art and dressmaking until 1966.
Although teaching full-time, Mrs. Scott continued to paint for more than thirty years. Mrs. Scott was
a member of the Executive Board of the Council of the Arts, and a member of the Executive Board
of the Section of Arts of the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences for 27 years.
This extraordinarily scarce find is the first nude figure by the Harlem Renaissance sculptor to come
to auction.Very few standing figures in plaster by Augusta Savage are known to survive today. Theresa
Leininger-Miller describes how Savage returned from Paris with about twenty sculptures. Made in
the early 1930s, likely in her Harlem studio school, it demonstrates her skill and classical training in
figurative sculpture. By 1932, Savage was elected to the National Association ofWomen Painters, was
represented by Argent Galleries and founded the Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts in Harlem. In
addition to EdytheWilliams Scott, Savage’s students included such important artists as Jacob Lawrence,
Gwendolyn Knight, Norman Lewis,William Artis and Ernest Crichlow. In 1933, Savage expanded
her studio and founded the Harlem Art Workshop at 306 West 141st Street. By 1937, Savage was
named the first director of the Harlem Community Art Center, under the auspices of the WPA.
Bearden/Henderson pp. 173 and 317; Farrington pp. 103-105; Leininger-Miller pp. 200-201.
[35,000/50,000]
