Danforth Art Receives $40,000 Grant

Danforth Art Museum\School has received a $40,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation’s American Art Program to support the museum’s efforts to safeguard and document its Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller Special Collection.

In 2006, the Framingham museum was gifted more than 340 objects by Fuller’s descendants.

The Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller Special Collection includes the near-complete contents of the artist’s studio at the time of her death in 1968, including ephemera, process pieces, studies, tools, and completed casts. This unique collection offers not only a holistic and rich overview of her work and artistic process, but also a very intimate look at the artist’s life, family, and creative community.

“We are grateful for the support of the Henry Luce Foundation, and in particular to its President Michael Gilligan and Program Director for American Art Ellen Holtzman,” said Debra Petke, Danforth Art Executive Director, “for recognizing Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller’s significance as an artist, as well as the potential for her life and her work to inform our understanding of race, gender, and class in the early 20th century.”

“The funds provided under this grant are essential to our efforts to inventory, photograph, rehouse, and conserve these objects. By improving both storage and our collections database, we will stabilize this one-of-a-kind collection, prepare it for our eventual move to the Jonathan Maynard Building, and begin to make it accessible for scholars. The Foundation’s support of these vital stewardship efforts is deeply appreciated,”said the Director in a press release.

Born in Philadelphia, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller (1877-1968) was one of the first African- American female sculptors of importance and was known for her groundbreaking depictions of the African-American experience.

Her artistic ability was recognized early and, at the age of 18, she enrolled in the Philadelphia Museum and School of the Industrial Arts (now University of the Arts). Upon graduation in 1899, she moved to Paris, where she studied with a number of artists, and gained the attention of prominent mentors like intellectual leader W.E.B. DuBois and French sculptor Auguste Rodin.

Fuller returned to the United States in 1902, and later moved to Framingham with her husband, the distinguished psychiatrist Dr. Solomon Fuller. Anticipating themes of the Harlem Renaissance, throughout the 1910s and 1920s, Fuller elevated the African-American visage to an artistic subject equally worthy of depiction.

While her early sculpture received critical acclaim—Fuller was said to possess “a great talent, amounting almost to genius” in a 1902 review—both in the United States and abroad, perhaps her best known works are civic commissions like Ethiopia Awakening (1914), now at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York, and Emancipation (1913) in Harriet Tubman Park in Boston’s South End.

The Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller Special Collection at Danforth Art spans 70 years of creative output from Fuller’s early works in Paris, to her role as a precursor to the Harlem Renaissance, to her late works celebrating members of the African-American intelligentsia.

“Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller’s significance to art historical scholarship is of particular importance relative to studies of race and gender. As an African-American woman seeking success as a professional artist in the early decades of the twentieth century, Fuller encountered limited opportunities, yet still emerged as both artist and mentor,” said Danforth Art Curator Jessica Roscio, in a press release. “Danforth Art is privileged to be the home of the contents of Fuller’s studio, ranging from personal effects to works in plaster and bronze, which provide us with a more complete picture of the artist’s process, as well as shed light on the balance she struggled to maintain between domestic life and her artistic identity.”

Funds received from the Henry Luce Foundation’s American Art Program will support the first phase of critical work to improve housing and documentation of the collection. Danforth Art is seeking additional funds to develop an interpretation plan that will uncover the compelling themes of Fuller’s life and inform future exhibition development.

Established as a grassroots organization in 1975 by a committed group of community activists, business owners, educators, and artists, Danforth Art is the only independent art museum in MetroWest.

Danforth Art is engaged in active and thoughtful planning for a future move to the Jonathan Maynard Building on Framingham Center Common.