XI
SCULPTORS.—META WARRICK FULLER
IN sculpture, as well as in painting, there has been a beginning of highly artistic achievement. The first person to come into prominence was Edmonia Lewis, born in New York in 1845. A sight of the statue of Franklin, in Boston, inspired within this young woman the desire also to "make a stone man." Garrison introduced her to a sculptor who encouraged her and gave her a few suggestions, but altogether she received little instruction in her art. In 1865 she attracted considerable attention by a bust of Robert Gould Shaw, exhibited in Boston. In this same year she went to Rome to continue her studies, and two years later took up her permanent residence there. Among her works are: "The Freedwoman," "The Death of Cleopatra" (exhibited at the exposition in Philadelphia in 1876), "Asleep," "The Marriage of Hiawatha," and "Madonna with the Infant Christ." Among her busts in terra cotta are those of John Brown, Charles Sumner, Lincoln, and Longfellow. Most of the work of Edmonia Lewis is in Europe. More recently the work of Mrs. May Howard Jackson, of Washington, has attracted the attention of the discerning. This sculptor has made several busts, among her subjects being Rev. F. J. Grimké and Dr. DuBois, and "Mother and Child" is one of her best studies. Bertina Lee, of Trenton, N. J., is one of the promising young sculptors. She is from the Trenton Art School and has already won several valuable prizes.
META WARRICK FULLER
The sculptor at the present time of assured position is Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller.
Meta Vaux Warrick was born in Philadelphia, June 9, 1877. She first compelled serious recognition of her talent by her work in the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art, for which she had won a scholarship, and which she attended for four years. Here one of her first original pieces in clay was a head of Medusa, which, with its hanging jaw, beads of gore, and eyes starting from their sockets, marked her as a sculptor of the horrible. In her graduating year, 1898, she won a prize for metal work by a crucifix upon which hung the figure of Christ torn by anguish, also honorable mention for her work in modeling. In her post-graduate year she won the George K. Crozier first prize for the best general work in modeling for the year, her particular piece being the "Procession of Arts and Crafts." In 1899 the young student went to Paris, where she worked and studied for three years, chiefly at Colarossi's Academy. Her work brought her in contact with St. Gaudens and other artists; and finally there came a day when the great Rodin himself, thrilled by the figure in "Secret Sorrow," a man represented as eating his heart out, in the attitude of a father beamed upon the young woman and said, "Mademoiselle, you are a sculptor; you have the sense of form." "The Wretched," one of the artist's masterpieces, was exhibited in the Salon in 1903, and along with it went "The Impenitent Thief"; and at one of Byng's exhibitions in L'Art Nouveau galleries it was remarked of her that "under her strong and supple hands the clay has leaped into form: a whole turbulent world seems to have forced itself into the cold and dead material." On her return to America the artist resumed her studies at the School of Industrial Art, winning, in 1904, the Battles first prize for pottery. In 1907 she was called on for a series of tableaux representing the advance of the Negro, for the Jamestown Tercentennial Exposition, and later (1913) for a group for the New York State Emancipation Proclamation Commission. In 1909 Meta Vaux Warrick became the wife of Dr. Solomon C. Fuller, of Framingham, Mass. A disastrous fire in 1910 destroyed some of her most valuable pieces while they were in storage in Philadelphia. Only a few examples of her early work, that for one reason or another happened to be elsewhere, were saved. In May, 1914, however, she had sufficiently recovered from this blow to be able to hold a public exhibition of her work. Mrs. Fuller resides in Framingham, has a happy family of three boys, and in the midst of a busy life still finds some time for the practice of her art.
The fire of 1910 destroyed the following productions: Secret Sorrow, Silenus, Oedipus, Brittany Peasant, Primitive Man, two of the heads from Three Gray Women, Peeping Tom, Falstaff, Oriental Dancer, Portrait of William Thomas, The Wrestlers, Death in the Wind, Désespoir, The Man with a Thorn, The Man who Laughed, the Two-Step, Sketch for a Monument, Wild Fire, and the following studies in Afro-American types: An Old Woman, The Schoolboy, The Comedian (George W. Walker), The Student, The Artist, and Mulatto Child, as well as a few unfinished pieces. Such a misfortune has only rarely befallen a rising artist. Some of the sculptor's most remarkable work was included in the list just given.