Women Artists Posters & Prints “S...-T...-”
for the social studies, art and art history/appreciation classrooms and home schoolers.

Betye Saar

Betye Saar
b. 7-30-1926; Los Angeles, CA

Artist Betye Saar is best known for her work in the field of assemblage and collage. Saar collected stereotyped African-American images from advertising and folk culture, combining them into political and protest statements.

In Her Hands: The Story of Sculptor Augusta Savage

Augusta Savage, née Fells
b. 2-29-1892; Green Cove Springs, FL
d. 3-26-1962; New York

While Augusta Savage is mostly known as a sculptor, she was also a wonderful art teacher and a tireless supporter of the rights of all artists, expecially black artists. But she was lucky that she was able to pursue her art at all. She grew up in Florida with thirteen brothers and sisters. Her father was a strict Methodist minister who believed that the Bible forbade creating “graven images.” He punished Augusta whevever he found any of the small clay figurines she made as a child. But she did not let that get in her way. As she got older, she won awards for her work – and she also won her father's approval. She headed north to Harlem in 1921.

Savage's talent won her scholarships and friends among Harlem's elite. She was hired to sculpt the likenesses of some of the major black political figures of the time, including W.E.B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey. Then, in 1923, she applied for a special summer arts program in France. When the selection committee found out Savage was black, however, her application was rejected. The controversy became front-page news in New York, as many scholars and community leaders rallied to her cause. But it wasn't until six years later that she was finally able to study in France.

In her later years, Savage spent more of her time teaching than sculpting. She founded a school that became the Harlem Community Art Center, the largest art center in the United States. One of her students, Jacob Lawrence, went on to become perhaps the most successful African American painter of all time. The art world lost a major figure when Augusta Savage died in 1962. [Text from an out-of-stock Stars of the Harlem Renaissance poster.]

Elisabetta Sirani
b. 1-8-1638; Bologna, Italy
d. 8-25-1665

Elisabetta Sirani, the daughter of a painter, was noted in her short lifetime for her portraits, mythological, Holy Family, and Virgin and Child paintings, drawings and etching. By the time she was nineteen, she was running the family workshop and supporting her parents and siblings. She was also a noted teacher. After she died suddenly at the age of twenty seven, it was discovered she suffered from ulcers.

Jessie Willcox Smith
b. 9-6-1863; Philadelphia, PA
d. 5-3-1935

Marie Spartali Stillman
b. 3-10-1844; London, England
d. 3-6-1927; London

Marie Sparali Stillman was a Pre-Raphaelite painter with a 60 year career.

Alma Woodsey Thomas
b. 9-22-1891; Columbus, Georgia
d. 2-24-1978; Washington, DC

Artist Alma Woodsey Thomas was the first graduate of Howard University’s newly organized art department (1924). In 1972 she became the first African American woman to hold a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

The Eclipse, poster not available

She was also a noted teacher, starting a community arts program that encouraged student appreciation of fine art.

Alma Woodsey Thomas quote ~
• “Creative art is for all time and is therefore independent of time. It is of all ages, of every land, and if by this we mean the creative spirit in man which produces a picture or a statue is common to the whole civilized world, independent of age, race and nationality; the statement may stand unchallenged.”