Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller is one of the most contributing artists to the black arts movement during the Harlem Renaissance. Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller is the fourth child to William H. Warrick a barber and Emma Warrick, a wigmaker. The Philadelphia native began to work on her craft during college as she trained at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art. Shortly after her graduation she moved to Paris and fell in love with art. She began a close friendship and mentored under W.E.B DuBois and French sculptor Auguste Rodin. In 1902, just seven years after returning to the states she married Dr. Solomon Fuller who was the first psychiatrist of African descent to practice in the US. The couple share had three sons Solomon Jr., Perry, and William Thomas.

Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller is considered a precursor to the Harlem Renaissance. During this period, Fuller created Ethiopia Awakening, a sculpture which symbolized the emergence of a new way of black thinking that anticipated the voices of the Harlem Renaissance. The sculptor depicted a woman whose lower half was wrapped as a mummy and the top was the face of a beautiful African woman wearing an Egyptian headdress. She is known for her groundbreaking depictions of the African and African-American experience. The more she became immersed in black life in Philadelphia, the more her work began to reflect African American themes as well as European influences. She held exhibitions at her studio and was invited by local art schools and community organizations to contribute to their art shows.

The Danforth Museum of Art in Framingham, MA holds Fullers art work still to this day as many tourists and visitors admire her sculptors. Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller passed away in her home on March 18, 1968 in Framingham, Massachusetts at the age of 81. Although Fuller passed there is a foundation in her name “The Meta Fuller Program” that helps young and at risk children express their creativity through visual arts.

• Tierra Anderson, Contributor