Map of the New York World’s Fair and Approaches
Photograph of Augusta Savage’s Lift Every Voice and Sing (The Harp)
Augusta Savage (1892–1962)
Maquette of Lift Every Voice and Sing (The Harp)
Bonded bronze, 1939
Art and Artifacts Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Maquette of Lift Every Voice and Sing (The Harp)
In 1937 the Board of Design for the 1939 World’s Fair offered Augusta Savage a commission to create a sculpture for the event. Savage, a key figure of the Harlem Renaissance, created a work honoring composer, activist, lawyer, and fellow Floridian James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938). “I have taken for my theme the national Negro anthem,” wrote Savage. “It is a poem written by the late James Weldon Johnson, and set to the music by his brother, John Rosamond Johnson. The title is ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing.’” The sculpture was one of the most popular at the fair, and reproductions were made and sold as souvenirs.
: Art and Artifacts Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Currently on View at Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
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