Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, 1877 – 1968

Born in 1877 into a middle-class Black family in Philadelphia, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller showed an early passion for the arts and, in 1894, earned a scholarship to study at the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art. Upon graduating five years later, she was awarded first prize for a metal crucifix depicting a tormented Christ and received an honorable mention for a clay model titled Procession of Arts and Crafts (Lewis 53). Like many young women artists, she was encouraged by her teachers to pursue her studies in Paris. Although Meta's family was initially hesitant to let her travel alone to France, they found comfort in knowing that Osawa Tanner had promised to meet her at the station and look after her during her stay. At 22, Fuller sailed alone on the Belgiumland to England and raveled to Paris a week later. Despite significant initial challenges, she immersed herself in Paris's vibrant international art scene from 1899 to 1903, studying and exhibiting her work.

Before leaving Philadelphia, Meta had written to the American Consul, who recommended she stay at the American Girls' Club. She thus wrote to the  director of the Club, Julia Acly, who promised her of one of its thirty-eight rooms. Henry Ossawa Tanner, a family friend and prominent Black artist in Paris, planned to meet her at the train station. However, Fuller’s arrival was fraught with challenges: Tanner missed her at the station, and she had to make her way to the Club alone.

Kerr’s biographical account provides a noteworthy description of her arrival at the Club:

On first sight, the club and its gardens with secluded seats and benches seemed more like a home than like a private institution. The hour was still early when Meta arrived there. Upon entering, she asked for the director, Miss Acley. Moments later, an employee escorted Meta, still wearing her coat and hat with its heavy travel-veil, to Miss Acley's bedroom. There she found the director, a handsome woman with aristocratic presence, sitting at her dressing table, a maid arranging her hair. Miss Acley, who was preoccupied with what the maid was doing, saw Meta's entrance reflected in her vanity mirror. "Sit down, child," she said, greeting her warmly. Meta settled into a tufted, pink, satin chair and began to remove her coat and hat. When she lifted the veil, fully exposing her face to the daylight, Meta saw Miss Acley's expression, mirrored in the looking glass, turn to ice. Visibly shaken, Miss Acley turned quickly to Meta and exclaimed, "You didn't tell me that you were not a white girlI Why didn't you tell me that you were not a white girl?" Meta's throat constricted with shock and the palms of her hands grew moist as she suddenly grasped the arms of the chair. In a dry voice, she told the director that she had not thought it necessary. "I was told that the American Girls' Club was financed by Mrs. Whitlaw Reid and other American women . . . and it was here for the American girl students who came to Paris to study. I felt that I, as an American girl, was entitled to come here." (73-74)

Fuller's words reflected her quiet resilience and assertion of her right to belong, but Acly explained that she could not stay at the Club, expressing concern that other residents, particularly those from the American South, might mistreat her. She urged her to wait for Tanner's arrival, and invited her to breakfast.

When Tanner met Fuller later that day at the Club and learned of her dismay, he encouraged her to seek alternate accommodations, describing the Club as a “cliquey place” (Kerr 76). Acly helped her find a room, but it didn’t meet her needs, and Fuller ended up moving between several hotels and apartments before finally settling down.

It is hardly surprising that Fuller was denied accommodation at the Girls' Art Club, given the pervasive discrimination and exclusion faced by Black people at the turn of the twentieth century. The Girls' Art Club was just one of many institutions in Paris that maintained such prejudiced practices.

Henry Ossawa Tanner had already built a strong artistic reputation in Paris by the time Fuller arrived. While he felt somewhat freer from racial prejudice in France than in the United States, he still had to contend with stereotypical depictions of Black people, even as a member of the American Art Association of Paris (AAAP).

The photo on the left, taken around 1907, shows a group of performers in blackface—a stark example of the racist iconography prevalent at the time. Such openly racist stereotypes were widely accepted in Paris, where, under the guise of camaraderie and "good humor," Black people were the object of exaggerated depictions of dancing and buffoonery.

Even when the American press praised Meta Fuller’s skill as an artist, the recognition was often racially tinged and inaccurate. In 1903, she exhibited an evocative work, "The Wretched," at the Salon de la Société nationale des Beaux-Arts. It was reviewed in the Chicago Sunday Tribune in an article titled "American Women Who Have Won Fame as Sculptors," (June 21, 1903). On one hand, the article commends Meta as "the sculptor whose masterly expression of strange and original thought led Rodin—the celebrated, unique Rodin—to give her his special attention and a great deal of his valuable time during her three years of study in Paris.” Yet, in the same breath, she is referred to as “the Philadelphia mulatto girl” who allegedly brought one of her sculptures to Rodin at age 10 to become his protégé—a claim that is entirely untrue. The article profiles five other American women sculptors, all White, yet none receive the kind of backhanded praise reserved for Fuller (46).

Fuller’s perseverance and adaptability stood out when the Club rejected her, but the impact of her exclusion was significant. As Ater notes, “she was unable to participate in the lively interchange among residents at the club: the informal sketch classes, the collegiality and support of other American women artists, and the formal entertainments that involved well-known artists and dealers” (23).

In a 1901 St. Louis Post-Dispatch article, an account from someone identified only as “CFM” describes the cruelty and hypocrisy Meta faced from her White peers. We have since identified “CFM” as Cornelia Field Maury, an artist and resident at the Club. Although Maury does not name specific individuals, she does reference an encounter with Henry Ossawa Tanner, clearly situating the incident she described at 4 rue de Chevreuse and involving Meta Fuller. For ease of reading, a full transcription of the article follows below:

I am obliged to President Roosevelt for setting the American people such a good example and bringing the color question to the surface once more for solution. We as a nation have to settle it some time, and the oftener it comes up the sooner it will be over. The injustices we white people, as a class, deal out to the colored is astounding in a supposedly liberty loving land, when calmly considered. It seems to be so universal as to make one ashamed of one’s country. I have personal knowledge of such treatment to colored people who are as refined, well-educated and moral as my own white friends. At dinner one evening in Paris, I had the honor of meeting the eminent American painter, Mr. Henry O. Tanner, a man who stands with the best in his profession, reflecting great distinction on his country. In manner and conversation, he was the educated gentleman. I did not find myself hurt in the least by the acquaintance, but honored. It is well understood why Mr. Tanner prefers to live in Paris rather than in the United States. He knows as well as most of us that he would be so cordially snubbed almost everywhere that life here would be impossible today.The case of Miss—, a colored girl at the American Girls’ Club in Paris, is another instance of man’s inhumanity to man, though here woman’s inhumanity to woman. This girl from Philadelphia went to study art as hundreds of other American girls do, bringing good letters, and expected a home at the club. She got board and room there, but when a certain young woman from South Carolina found herself eating breakfast in the same dining room with the colored girl she threatened to leave the club, and Miss— was politely asked to go elsewhere. For one year nearly I saw Miss— frequently at the club—she was allowed all other privileges of the place—and I know that she was the object of unjust criticism and many a cool snubbing of which she was perfectly conscious, but never openly resented. She couldn’t: there were too many against her. And this was done by both northern and southern young women. One could see that she was equal in breeding, education, ideas of dress and politeness to the nicest girls there, but her one sin was the tint of her skin. It would be hard for humanity if God drew the color line across the souls of his children. Yet these same superior Americans, the South Carolinian, too, went to the little Episcopal chapel in the court every Sunday and thought they were Christians. It seems queer! All Americans would do well to read Booker Washington’s “Up From Slavery” and “Autobiography.” The colored man demands only what every American claims for himself—equal rights, common justice. So, judge the negro as we judge ourselves—by individual merit. Give them equal chances, commercially and industrially: open the college doors to him and the club doors, and, if need be, break bread with him. If you are a man, a real man, it will be all right; but if you are a little man, you’ll fall. C. F. M. St. Louis.

Fuller remained undaunted and determined, striking out on her own to build a network of friends and mentors. Her challenging start at the Girls' Art Club was later offset by rewarding experiences in various académies. Initially, Julia Acly introduced her to the American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, who advised her to begin with drawing lessons before moving on to sculpting, suggesting William-Adolphe Bouguereau or Raphaël Collin as potential instructors. Fuller chose to study in Collin's atelier, which was costly and ultimately disappointing. Encouraged by a friend, she later studied under the sculptor Jean-Antonin Carlès, also joining classes at the Académie Colarossi and studying drawing at the École des Beaux-Arts. Among her classmates was Paula Modersohn-Becker, who introduced her to Clara Westhoff Rilke, who, in turn, helped Fuller meet Auguste Rodin. During her visit to Rodin’s Meudon studio in the summer of 1901, he immediately recognized her talent, saying, “My child, you are a born sculptor; you have a sense for form” (quoted in French in Kerr, 3). Rodin subsequently took her under his guidance (Leininger-Miller 9).

Henry Ossawa Tanner, serving as a judge for the American Woman’s Art Association’s annual exhibition, encouraged Fuller to display one of her works at the 1902 show. In a poignant turn of events, her bust John the Baptist (c. 1901) was displayed at the very Club that had once refused her lodging. The piece was also featured in the Herald Tribune’s Paris edition, which noted that Fuller had “the distinction of being the only sculptor represented” (Leininger-Miller 9).

Fuller's career thrived following her exhibit at the Club. Later that year, Siegfried Bing sponsored her solo show at his gallery, La Maison de l'Art Nouveau. She also exhibited two of her works, The Wretched and The Impenitent Thief, at the prestigious 1903 Salon des Beaux Arts. Buoyed by this recognition, Fuller returned to the United States in 1903.

In 1907, she achieved another milestone as the first artist commissioned by the U.S. government to create a series of dioramas depicting the history of Black Americans (Lewis). These works were showcased at the Jamestown Tercentennial Exposition in Norfolk, Virginia, where she was awarded a gold medal for her contributions:

In Landing and thirteen other dioramas, she used more than 130 painted plaster figures, model landscapes, and backgrounds to give viewers a chronological survey of the African American experience. Scenes ranged from a tableau of a fugitive slave to a depiction of the home life of "the modern, successfully educated, and progressive Negro" [...]  Warrick's dioramas, [...] enabled blacks to see themselves as the main actors in their own defined world. Whereas "Old South" concessions and anthropological exhibits organized by whites exhibited blacks, Warrick's dioramas represented them. The distinction between exhibiting and representing blacks was not just authorship but also agency (Brundage 1368, 1371).

Although none of Fuller’s dioramas survive today, images of them are available through The New York Public Library's Digital Collections.

In 1910, a warehouse fire destroyed Fuller’s belongings, including sixteen years of work—a devastating loss. Nevertheless, she continued to sculpt, despite opposition from her husband, Solomon C. Fuller, a Liberian-born neurologist practicing at Massachusetts State Hospital. The couple, who married in 1909, lived in Framingham, Massachusetts, and had three children.

Against all odds, Fuller pursued her artistic career for over sixty years, supported by a close friendship with W.E.B. Du Bois, whom she had met in Paris. Du Bois noted that, in addition to her remarkable talent, “the accidents of education and opportunity have raised [Fuller] on the tidal wave of chance” (Kerr vi). Fuller's unwavering portrayals of Black life, along with her connections to key figures of the Harlem Renaissance, cement her status as one of the most significant artists of the twentieth century.

Meta Warrick Fuller passed away on March 18, 1968, at the age of ninety-one. On October 15, 1999, her son, Solomon C. Fuller, Jr., presented West Virginia State College, where Fuller had lectured in the late 1950s, with a sculpture he re-titled Ravages of War—originally created in 1917 as Peace Halting the Ruthlessness of War ("'Ravages of War' unveiling at WVSC").

The Danforth Museum in Framingham is the caretaker of the Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller Special Collection. Shared on the museum's YouTube profile with members of her family, this collection includes ephemera, studies, process pieces, and other works that enrich our understanding of Fuller’s art. Her papers are housed at the Schomburg Center of the New York Public Library.

Sources

• "American Women Who Have Won Fame as Sculptors." Chicago Sunday Tribune, June 21, 1903, p. 46. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
• Ater, Renée. Remaking Race and History: The Sculpture of Meta Warrick Fuller. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011.
• Brundage, W. Fitzhugh. "Meta Warrick's 1907 'Negro Tableaux' and (Re) Presenting African American Historical Memory." The Journal of American History, vol. 89, no. 4, March 2003, pp. 1368-1400. JSTOR.
• CFM. "Another View of Negro Equality." St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 30, 1901, p.4. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
• Hoover, Velma J. “Meta Warrick Fuller: Her Life and Art.” Negro History Bulletin, volume 40, no. 2, March-April 1977, pp. 678-681.
• Kennedy, Harriet Forte. "An Independent Woman: The Life and Art of Meta Warrick Fuller (1877-1968)." Framingham, MA: Danforth Museum of Art, 1984.
• Kerr, Judith Nina. "God-Given Work: The Life and Times of Sculptor Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, 1877- 1968." PhD Dissertation, University of Massachusetts, 1986. 
• Leininger-Miller, Theresa A. New Negro Artists in Paris: African American Painters and Sculptors in the City of Light, 1922-1934. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001.
• Lewis, Samella. Art: African American, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Inc., 1978, see, pp. 53-55. 
• Lewis, Femi. “Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller: Visual Artist of the Harlem Renaissance.” ThoughtCo. October 27, 2019.
• Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller Special Collection. Danforth Museum, Framingham, Massachusetts.
• Meta Warrick Fuller Papers, 1864-1990. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, New York, NY. New York Public Library archives. 
• "'Ravages of War' unveiling at WVSC." The Charleston Gazette, October 7, 1999, p. 10. ProQuest Documents.