Saugerties honored Augusta Savage, the acclaimed Harlem Renaissance sculptor who lived there for 15 years, with a day celebrating her legacy that included a documentary, a slide show about her upstate life, readings of two of her unpublished short stories — and a mention of the chicken-foot soup she served to neighborhood children.
An Orpheum Theatre presentation on Saturday, “The Legacy of Augusta Savage,” organized by ShoutOut Saugerties, began with readings from proclamations by the town and village of Saugerties and by the Ulster County Legislature declaring Aug. 1 Augusta Savage Day. Then came a screening of the PBS “American Masters” documentary “Searching for Augusta Savage,” which traced Savage’s career in New York City and her move upstate. It included a tour of her home and an interview with Anthony Elia, the grandson of scientist Herman Karl Knaust Jr., who employed her as a laboratory assistant. Because no recordings of Savage’s voice are known to exist, actress Lorraine Toussaint speaks her words in the film.
Charlotte Mangin, the film’s executive producer, director and writer, spoke about discovering Saugerties while making it. The town’s rural setting, echoing Savage’s childhood in Florida, “almost felt like a homecoming,” she said. There, Savage “rested from a lot of the setbacks that she faced.”
Research at the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center turned up photographs and two boxes of papers, including Savage’s own writings, Mangin said, but her life in Saugerties was barely documented. Budget and time constraints meant the crew could spend a single day in town and interview one person. Contemporary accounts in local newspapers chronicle her well-received lectures — she was described as compelling before audiences as far off as Chicago — and even an offer to design a war memorial in Quarryville.
Answering audience questions, Mangin traced how the papers survived at all: Savage’s daughter, Irene, had no children of her own but married a man who did, and it was Savage’s stepdaughter who donated the collection to the Schomburg. Savage’s step-granddaughter, who was 10 when Savage died, remembered visiting her in Saugerties.
Next came a dramatic reading by actress Sharon Washington from Marilyn Nelson’s book of poems, “Augusta Savage: The Shape of a Sculptor’s Life.” One poem, shaped as a tree, was projected on the screen as Washington read work describing a childhood sculpting animals from red clay, Savage’s anger when a scholarship was withdrawn at the last minute because of her race, and her years in Saugerties.
Nelson spoke afterward. Because the poems were “about a sculptor,” she said, “I felt I needed to do some sculpting.” The book includes a recipe for the chicken-foot soup that Saugerties residents remember her serving them as children, and is now part of a New York Public Library teaching kit about Savage.
Speaker Ariane Hunter and actress Chantez Engeleit read two unpublished short stories Savage wrote in Saugerties. “The Room at Number Sixteen” is a ghost story with a warning about alcohol, while “Red Heels” follows a young woman’s delight in a pair of colorful shoes. The stories survive at the Schomburg Center.
Capping the presentation was a slide show, “In Her Footsteps: Augusta Savage’s Life in Harlem and Saugerties,” which opened with drone footage by photographer Michael Nelson of Savage’s home and studio in the hamlet of Katsbaan, which she bought in 1945. The slides included local newspaper stories unearthed in the History Room of the Saugerties Public Library by Susan Murphy. Some described Savage’s involvement with the Lutheran Church of the Atonement, where she taught Sunday school — news to current church officials. In Kingston’s Hall of Records, Murphy also found documentation of Savage’s purchase of her home from Nathaniel Gross and Samuel Mann for $1, and of the $2,000 mortgage she took out a couple of years later. Murphy identified Savage’s last known work as a bust of the author Poultney Bigelow, commissioned in the early 1950s and privately owned today.
An art exhibition at the Lamb Center, which opened Saturday, includes three of her sculptures — a small horse and busts of her young neighbors, Wesley and Lois Finger — along with work by sculptors and painters she influenced. Wesley Finger, 79, a retired IBM chip designer, still lives in Saugerties.
“Augusta Savage: A Monumental Influence,” curated by Randall Harris, of Figureworks Gallery in Brooklyn and Saugerties, and Carol Griffin, an African American sculptor whose work has appeared at Figureworks, runs through Sunday, Aug. 30. The gallery, at 41 Market St., is open Saturdays and Sundays, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Griffin, along with artists Debra Priestly, JoAnne McFarland and Susan Murphy, will take part in an artists’ talk there at 2 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 16.
Margaret Tomlinson is a contributing writer. You can send her an email at reporting@theoverlooknews.com.
