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An Artist is Born!
Born in Philadelphia As Meta Warrick.
Father William Warrick.
Mother Emma Jones Warrick.
Youngest of 4.
One sister, Virgina.
Two brothers, Blanche and William Henry. -
Art Inspired
She attended the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Arts in 1897 (now Pennsylvania College of Art) before traveling abroad to study in Paris, France in 1899. Warrick studied at the Académie Colarossi for sculpture and La Ecole des Beaux Arts for drawing. -
An Artist's Love
Meta Warrick returned to Philadelphia in 1902. Eleven years after her return she married Dr. Solomon Fuller of Massachusetts. -
The Wretched
While Fuller lived in Paris in 1899-1903 and studied sculpture at the Académie Colarossi, drawing at the École des Beaux-Arts, and painting with Raphaël Collin. She was an important early-twentieth-century African-American sculptor. -
Ethiopia Awakening
Ethiopia Awakening was signature piece, which in many ways anticipated the Harlem Renaissance two decades later. As the depiction of an ancient black Egyptian coming back to life, this piece exemplifies a determination to shatter Africa’s association with slavery and ignorance. Fuller created the piece as a historical validation and celebration of Africans and their connection to African Americans. -
An Artist's Famliy
Before she was married, Fuller stored all her tools and sculptures in a Philadelphia warehouse. In 1910, before she could have the load shipped to her in Framingham, a fire in the warehouse destroyed sixteen years’ worth of her work from Paris and Philadelphia. The tragedy killed her desire to sculpt, and Fuller found solace as a wife and mother—over the next six years, she gave birth to three children, sons Solomon, Jr., William Thomas, and Perry. -
Emancipation
She created Emancipation in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.The sculpture depicts male and female figures that emerge from the tree of knowledge at the center of the sculpture. -
Talking Skull
Talking Skull depicts an African man kneeling on the ground addressing a skull. The inspiration for the piece is said to be an African folk tale in which a young man comes across a talking skull. The young man reports his finding to his village and brings the chief to the skull, but it will not talk. In some interpretations, the young man is punished for lying, while in others, the skull later tells the young man "You talk too much!" -
A Sickly Artist
Fuller retired from her work in the 1950s to care for her now blind and ill husband and to recover from her own battle with tuberculosis. -
An Artist's Downfall
In the 1960s she returned to sculpting, creating tributes to the civil rights movement before dying in 1968 at age 90.
