Apr 06, 2023 - Sale 2632

Sale 2632 - Lot 8

Price Realized: $ 47,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 25,000 - $ 35,000
AUGUSTA SAVAGE (1892 - 1962)
Lenore (Harlem Girl).

Plaster, painted bronze, 1935. Approximately 178x140x102 mm; 7x5 1/2x4 inches. With the artist's name incised, verso.

Provenance: private collection, New York.

This charming and sensitive bust of a young girl is a scarce Harlem Renaissance portrait by Augusta Savage, and the first known cast of this plaster to come to auction. Beginning in the late 1920s, Savage made small scale portraits of children in her Harlem studio school, including her iconic Gamin, 1929. Similar works from the period include Savage's bronze bust of Gwendolyn Knight, 1934-35 and an untitled bronze bust of a girl in pigtails, 1935.

The 1930s was also the period when Savage reached the peak of her career as both an artist and administrator in New York. In 1932, Savage was elected to the National Association of Women Painters, was represented by Argent Galleries and founded the Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts in Harlem. Savage's students included such important artists as Jacob Lawrence, Gwendolyn Knight, Norman Lewis, William Artis and Ernest Crichlow. In 1933, she 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.