Mar 30, 2017 - Sale 2441

Sale 2441 - Lot 154

Price Realized: $ 812
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(ART.) HARDISON, INGE. Three sculpted heads of Norbert Rillieux, Mathew Henson and Frederick McKinley Jones, three outstanding African Americans. Composite anodized plaster with a bronze finish. Only the last figure has its identifying brass name plate, the other two do not; however all three bear an informative ticket underneath the figure with historical information. New Jersey, 1970's

Additional Details

Three historical figures from a larger series of busts celebrating the accomplishments of African Americans. Mathew Henson accompanied Perry to the North Pole. Rillieux, who was born on a plantation, developed a method for refining sugar. McKinley Jones was a pioneer in the area of air-conditioning trucks for transporting food. Ruth Inge Hardison (1914-2016) was an African American sculptor, artist, and photographer, known particularly for her 1960s busts (or sculpted portraits) entitled "Negro Giants in History". Her 1983 collection called "Our Folks", which features sculpted portraits of everyday people, is also of note. Hardison was the only woman in the Black Academy of Arts and Letters (BAAL), a group that encourages awareness of Black artistic accomplishments, when it was founded in 1969.