Augusta Savage
Born 1892,  7th of 14 children to a poor Methodist minister and his wife.
Married 1907 to John Moore who only lived a couple years
Had a daughter.
Her father moved the family to West Palm Beach, FL where there was no clay to sculpt.
1915 married James Savage a carpenter, divorced in 1920/21.
1923 married Robert Poston a Marcus Garvey associate, Poston died in 1924.
Left her kid with her folks and moved to NYC with $4.60 ($78.92 in 2023).

During the Harlem Renaissance she made a name for herself as a sculptor with busts of Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. Du Bois among other high profile blacks.
Won a fellowship to study in Paris in 1929. Another fellowship in 1931 to stay in Paris a year and a grant to travel France, Germany, and Belgium.

Back in NYC she established a studio in 1932, and became the first black member of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. NAWPS?
1937 appointed first director of the Harlem Community Art Center, and was commissioned by the New York World's Fair of 1939 to create a sculpture symbolizing the musical contributions of African Americans.
Negro spirituals and hymns were the forms Savage decided to symbolize in The Harp.

It was Savage's largest work and her last major commission. She took a leave of absence from her position at the Harlem Community Art Center and spent almost two years completing the sixteen-foot sculpture. Cast in plaster and finished to resemble black basalt, 
The Harp was exhibited in the court of the Contemporary Arts building where it received much acclaim. The sculpture depicted a group of twelve stylized black singers in graduated heights that symbolized the strings of the harp. The sounding board was formed by the hand and arm of God, and a kneeling man holding music represented the foot pedal.
No funds were available to cast The Harp, nor were there any facilities to store it. After the fair closed it was demolished as was all the art.

After the fair she went back to her job and found she had been replaced.
After all she was a woman, and black, and there was a war to think about.