Sculptor Augusta Savage Her Art, Progressive Influences, and African-American Representation

This work continued Savage's desire to dismantle the prevailing negative representations of African Americans that were still deeply imbedded in American visual culture. In 1929, Savage's efforts resulted in her first masterpiece, Gamin. In this bust-length figure, Savage presented the most accessible, complex, and physiognomically accurate depiction of an ordinary African-American that had ever been achieved by any American artist. Throughout the 1920s, Savage depicted the beauty and grace of African-Americans, and was vital to the formulation of a new visual culture, and rumental in making art more accessible to her own community.