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WILLIAM E. ARTIS

WILLIAM E. ARTIS (1914-1977) moved to New York City from North Carolina in 1927 and studied at Augusta Savage's Uptown Art Laboratory, an informal classroom and salon for Harlem Renaissance artists. By 1946, Artis had established his reputation as a ceramicist and sculptor, receiving a Harmon Foundation Fellowship to demonstrate his technique at several historically black colleges and universities. He worked primarily in terra cotta through the 1940s but moved into marble in the latter part of his career. Best known for his sensitive portrayals of male subjects, Artis worked continually with concepts of Negritude, the search for cores of black existence and aesthetics.