Symposium: Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller

One of the most significant yet underrecognized artists of the twentieth century, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller (1877–1968) spent her formative years in Paris at the turn of the century — including time at the very building where this symposium will be held. A sculptor of extraordinary power and originality, Fuller studied under Auguste Rodin, exhibited at the Salon des Beaux-Arts, and went on to become a defining voice of the Harlem Renaissance. Her work gave form to Black experience, resilience, and identity at a time when Black artists were marginalized in both the art world and society at large.

This two-day symposium brought together scholars, curators, archivists, and members of Fuller’s family for an in-depth exploration of her life, art, and legacy. Sessions examined her Paris years, her major works, her place among her contemporaries, and the ongoing efforts to preserve and steward her legacy. The symposium took place at Reid Hall, formerly the American Girls’ Art Club. Upon her arrival to Paris in 1899, the Club refused to house Fuller because “she was not white,” making it a particularly resonant setting for this gathering.

Whats Enters the Canon? with Kellie Jones & Heather Nickels

In this conversation, Kellie Jones, Hans Hoffman Professor of Modern Art at Columbia University and MacArthur Fellow, and Heather Nickels, independent curator and doctoral candidate at Columbia, discuss Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller’s place within African American art history, the structural conditions that shaped her access to sculpture as a medium, and what was lost — in practice and in the historical record — when her stored works were destroyed by fire in 1910.

Drawing comparisons with Edmonia Lewis and Augusta Savage, they examine how class, gender, colorism, and the lack of a comprehensive catalogue raisonné have all affected Fuller’s canonization. They also reflect on what Paris offered her — both artistic freedom and distance from the gendered expectations she would return to — and on the ongoing work needed to bring her work into the permanent collections of encyclopedic institutions, whether in New England, in Philadelphia, or beyond.

The Making of a Sculptor with Renée Ater

At the turn of the twentieth century, Paris drew young American artists with the promise of training unavailable at home. For African American artists, it also promised an escape from the racism that governed their professional lives in the United States, though that promise was not always kept.

In this episode, art historian Renée Ater discusses Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller’s three formative years in Paris, from her arrival in 1899 and the discrimination she faced at the American Girls’ Art Club, to her training under sculptors including Jean-Antonin Carlès, her encounter with Rodin’s work at the 1900 Universal Exposition, and the recognition she earned at Siegfried Bing’s L’Art Nouveau gallery in 1902. Ater draws on her dissertation and her 2010 monograph, Remaking Race and History: The Sculpture of Meta Warrick Fuller, as well as her ongoing digital archive at slaverymonuments.org, to trace how works like Silent Sorrow and The Wretched reflect Fuller’s absorption of Rodin’s expressive modeling and her own deepening engagement with themes of human suffering.