?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 10,000 - $ 15,000
AUGUSTA SAVAGE (1892 - 1962) Lift Every Voice and Sing.
White metal cast with black patina, circa 1939. Approximately 270x240x100 mm; 10 3/4x9 1/2x4 inches. Incised signature and "Worlds Fair 1939" at the base. Published by Augusta Savage Studios, Inc., New York. Missing the small title plate.
Provenance: acquired from a Florida estate; the current owner, Florida.
A life-size version of Lift Every Voice and Sing was commissioned by the 1939 New York World's Fair committee in 1937. Savage left the WPA to work on this monumental project, inspired by James Weldon and Rosamund Johnson's anthem Lift Every Voice. Sadly, the original work was destroyed when the Fair was over, but a small number of these smaller, souvenir versions were cast by the artist. When the commission was finished, Savage was left unemployed and destitute - she was forced to give up her career as an artist. In the mid 1940s, Savage lived a reclusive life in Saugerties, New York, where she began to explore her interest in writing. In 1962, Savage returned to New York City and died of cancer later that same year.
