The Sculptors

Fern Cunningham

Fern Cunningham from Boston Art Commission on Vimeo.

Fern Cunningham was a well-known Boston artist who studied sculpture at Boston University, earning a BFA in 1971. She died on August 19, 2020. She taught at the Park School in Brookline, Massachusetts, outside of Boston, for many years. Her body of work falls into two groups: small-scale sculpture and public monuments. Major influences on her work include the sculptors Michelangelo (1475-1564), Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), Augusta Savage (1892-1962), Henry Moore (1898-1986), and Elizabeth Catlett (1915-2012).

Cunningham aspired to teach history through her sculpture. “I was enthralled with the famous Greek sculpture, Nike or The Winged Samothrace and Michaelangelo’s Pieta. I wanted to work like that, only I wanted to do it from a black cultural standpoint. . . . I see myself as an educator through my sculpture and I am always trying to bring forth what is missing in American sculpture and to pay homage to the people who have not been acknowledged.”[1] Several of her works inhabit the Boston area landscape including Earth Challengers (ca. 1990s), Family Circle (1996), The Sentinel (2003), and Rise (2005).

The Harriet Tubman Memorial Committee did not run a national search for an artist. In 1996, they selected Cunningham based on their familiarity with her work. She was told that she was free to design whatever she chose in regard to representing Tubman. She writes, “I was able to work and work and work with small models, until I came up with something I really liked. I also worked around a lot of other sculptors and got a lot of input from people.”[2] Cunningham read every biography she could find on Tubman and looked at numerous historical photographs of Tubman before conceptualizing her statue, choosing to depict Tubman as a young woman leading freedom seekers on their journey north.

Alison Saar

A Los Angeles based artist, Alison Saar is a well-known sculptor and installation artist. Using found objects and traditional materials (bronze, wood, stone), Saar's sculptures and assemblages focus on the African American experience and gender. She often selects the nude black female body as her subject and highlights the role of history, race, and mythologies in relation to it. Saar has said of her art: “I wanted to make art that told a story, that would engage people. I wanted them to be moved by my work, whether it was specifically what my intentions were or not did not matter. I wanted them to be drawn in and affected by my sculpture.”[3]

Saar won the nation-wide design competition and created Swing Low: Harriet Tubman Memorial, which was funded through the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs’ The Percent for Art program. Saar’s statue of Tubman was the first public monument in New York City dedicated to an African American woman. Between 2003-2007, Saar worked with various city agencies, community members, and regional officials to determine the best use of the space and the placement of her statue.[4]

In collaboration with Saar, Quennell Rothschild & Partners landscaped the former barren traffic median. According to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, “the renovated triangle features paving blocks and roughly hewn granite to create a natural setting. Plantings native to both New York and Tubman’s home state of Maryland represent the woods and terrain traveled by Tubman and her Underground Railroad passengers, providing a contemplative space in which to consider Tubman’s legacy.”[5] The plaza is framed with granite seating and curbing that bears the words from the African American spiritual, “Go Down Moses.”

Mario Chiodo

The Riverfront Wilmington Sculpture Committee commissioned Mario Chiodo, a California-based artist to create a monument for the Tubman-Garrett Riverfront Park. Founder of Illusive Concepts, Chiodo began his career crafting Halloween masks and props including Star Wars movie collectibles. In 1997, he established Chiodo Art in order to focus on fine art production including memorial design and portraiture. Chiodo cites Italian Renaissance sculptor and painter Michelangelo (1475-1564) and French modern sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) as influential on his style. He is particularly entranced with Michelangelo’s Pietà, located in St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, and Four Prisoners or Slaves at the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence. Chiodo admires the way in which Michelangelo conveyed “the dynamic gesture and depth of emotion possible in sculpture.”[6]

At the time of the Wilmington commission, Chiodo was envisioning a series of monumental portraits for his Remember Them: Champions of Humanity monument. Located in the Henry J. Kaiser Memorial Park in Oakland, California, the 25 feet high by 52 feet long sculpture depicts twenty-five civil rights activists, including Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Chief Joseph, Mother Teresa, Thich Nhat Hahn, Rosa Parks, and Nelson Mandela. The portraits reveal Chiodo’s ability to sculpt a range of races and ethnicities with sensitivity, something with which the committee was deeply concerned.[7]

After being chosen as the finalist for the commission and submitting a model, Chiodo recalls that the city “enthusiastically accepted the design with no changes.”[8] The artist’s design focused on Harriet Tubman, Thomas Garrett, and two freedom seekers. Chiodo writes that the monument “embodies the perseverance and sacrifice of Harriet Tubman and those who assisted her in leading enslaved African Americans out of the South, a dangerous, clandestine operation known as the Underground Railroad.”[9]

References

[1]“Fern Cunningham,” To Work as A Sculptor: A Studio Journal, accessed February 22, 2019, https://wirthsculpture.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/fern-cunningham/.

[2]“The Harriet Tubman Memorial: The Dream Commission,” Interview with Fern Cunningham, accessed February 22, 2019, http://cunninghamsculpture.com/Fernclip6.html.

[3]Gary Brewer, “I Wanted to Make Art That Told a Story: Alison Saar on Her Eloquent Sculptures,” Hyperallergic.com, May 1, 2018, accessed May 15, 2018, https://hyperallergic.com/440597/i-wanted-to-make-art-that-told-a-story-alison-saar-on-her-eloquent-sculptures/.

[4]“Swing Low: Harriet Tubman Memorial Sculpture is Dedicated in Harlem,” NYC Parks, The Daily Plant, XXIII, no. 4831 (November 18, 2008), accessed September 26, 2016, https://www.nycgovparks.org/news/daily-plant?id=21821.

[5]Ibid.

[6]“About,” Mario Chiodo Art, accessed August 7, 2018, https://www.chiodoart.com/about.html.

[7]“Monument Facts,” Remember Them: Champions for Humanity, accessed August 7, 2018, http://www.remember-them.org/monument-facts.html.

[8]“Unwavering Courage in the Pursuit of Freedom,” CODA: Collaboration of Design + Art, accessed August 7, 2018, https://www.codaworx.com/project/unwavering-courage-in-the-pursuit-of-freedom-mayor-s-cultural-affairs-office.

[9]“Unwavering Courage in the Pursuit of Freedom,” Mario Chiodo: Freedom March of Art, accessed August 7, 2018, https://freedommarchofart.com/tubman.html.