Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller

American artist (1877–1968)

Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller (///m//iː//t//ə// /'/v//aʊ/ MEEtə VOW; born Meta Vaux Warrick; June 9, 1877 – March 13, 1968) was an African American artist who celebrated Afrocentric themes. At the fore of the Harlem Renaissance, Warrick was known for being a poet, painter, theater designer, and sculptor of the black American experience. At the turn of the 20th century, she achieved a reputation as the first black woman sculptor and was a well known sculptor in Paris before returning to the United States. Warrick was a protégée of Auguste Rodin, and has been described as "one of the most imaginative Black artists of her generation." Through adopting a horror based figural style and choosing to depict events of racial injustice, like the lynching of Mary Turner, Warrick used her platform to address the societal traumas of African Americans.

Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on June 9, 1877. Her parents were Emma (née Jones) Warrick, an accomplished wig maker and beautician for upperclass white women, and William H. Warrick, a successful barber and caterer. Her father owned several barber shops and her mother owned her own beauty salon. Warrick was, in fact, named after Meta Vaux, the daughter of Senator Richard Vaux, one of her mother's customers. Her maternal grandfather, Henry Jones, was a successful caterer in the city. During the Reconstruction, due to racism, legalized racial segregation laws, including Jim Crow laws limited social progress of African Americans into the 20th century. Warrick's art education and art influences began at home, nurtured from childhood by her older sister Blanche, who studied art, and visits to Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with her father, who was interested in sculpture and painting.

Warrick's career as an artist began after one of her high school projects was chosen to be included in the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Based upon this work, she won a four year scholarship to the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art (now The University of the Arts College of Art and Design) in 1894, In 1898, she received her Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art diploma and teacher's certificate working on sculpture and anatomy at the Académie Colarossi and drawing at the École des Beaux Arts. Warrick's work grew stronger in Paris, where she studied until 1902. Influenced by the conceptual realism of Auguste Rodin, she became so adept at depicting the spirituality of human suffering that the French press named her "the delicate sculptor of horrors." In 1902, she became the protege of Rodin. Of her plaster sketch entitled Man Eating His Heart, Rodin remarked, "My child, you are a sculptor; you have the sense of form in your fingers."

Warrick created works of the African American experience that were revolutionary. They touched on the complexities of nature, religion, identity, and nation. She is considered part of the Harlem Renaissance, a flourishing in New York of African Americans making art of various genres, literature, plays and poetry. The Danforth Museum, which received a $40,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to safeguard Warrick Fuller's work, states that Fuller is "generally considered one of the first African American female sculptors of importance."

Warrick Fuller made significant contributions to theater. She was a multi faceted designer, director, and actress. One of her focuses was stage lighting, which was not considered a true art form until the late 1920s; moreover, lighting design was dominated by men. Fuller was able to design for both African American and white theater companies, which was unheard of at the time. In 1918, she joined theater organizations in Boston, Massachusetts. She was known for her paintings of "living pictures" as well as the creation of props, scenery, and masks. The Answer was an African American stage production where Fuller designed costumes while also performing a small role. She became active in the Civic League Players (CLS) in the late 1920s and was the only African American in the organization. With the CLS, Fuller worked on over thirty shows in all different areas of production and taught workshops. In 1928, she was taking theater classes at Wellesley College and Columbia University that focused on pageantry, lighting, and playwriting. After becoming less active in the CLS, Fuller joined a Black theater company called the Allied Arts Theatre Group (AATG) where she worked as a head designer, director, and board member. She was involved with the AATG until the founder's death in 1936. Even with her commitments of being an artist and working in theater, Fuller wrote at least six plays under the pseudonym, Danny Deaver. The following is an excerpt of stage directions in her production titled, A Call After Midnight:"On the long hall table is a lamp, which the characters snap on and off, as they stop to look for mail, which is left in a receptacle for that purpose. The wall lights of the room are controlled by a switch at right of entrance, but these are of dull amber, the candle variety, the light is never bright."

In 1907, Warrick married Dr. Solomon Carter Fuller, a prominent physician The couple settled on Warren Road in Framingham, Massachusetts where they were one of the first black families to join the community. After the fire in 1910, Warrick Fuller built a studio in the back of her house, something which her husband strongly opposed. Between domestic duties, she found herself inspired by her religion and began to sculpt traditional biblical scenes.

Warrick Fuller died on March 13, 1968, Her work was also featured in a traveling exhibition called Three Generations of African American Women Sculptors: A Study in Paradox, in Georgia in 1998. The Danforth Museum has a large collection of Fuller's sculptures, including many unfinished works from her home studio. Many were exhibited in a solo retrospective show of her work from November 2008 to May 2009.