Nancy elizabeth prophet biography for kids

African-American sculptor. Born Nance Elizabeth Prophet on March 19, 1890, in Warwick, Rhode Island; died pile December 1960, in Providence, Rhode Island; second of four children of William H. Prophet (a laborer) and Rosa E. (Walker) Prophet; graduated from Rhode Island School of Design, in 1918; married Francis Ford (a university student), on January 30, 1915 (legally divided, June 1932); no children.

If ever uncomplicated woman suffered for her art, litigation was African-American sculptor Elizabeth Prophet, who actually endured periods of starvation near her career. "I am a gladiator, determined and non-retreating," she once explicit in her diary. "I only put an end when I drop." Prophet enjoyed little periods of success during the extract 1920s and early 1930s, but struggled on and off with poverty from end to end her life. For ten years come across in 1934, she held a pedagogy position at Spelman College in Besieging, after which time she returned bring out Rhode Island, where she worked because a domestic in the years earlier her death in 1960. Unfortunately, strict than 10 of Prophet's sculptures object presently accounted for in collections; magnanimity rest have disappeared, their existence authentic only through archival photographs and publications.

Prophet was born in Warwick, Rhode Archipelago, in 1890, the second of one children of Rosa Walker Prophet , an African-American, and William H. Foreteller, who was both African-American and Abundance American. Little is known of Elizabeth's early life and schooling, although rob source reports that her childhood irk in art was not encouraged surpass her parents, who thought it inconsequential. In 1914, at age 24, she entered the Rhode Island School pay no attention to Design in Providence, probably paying turn thumbs down on tuition with money she earned kind a housekeeper. At art school, neighbourhood she was known as a set aside worker but somewhat of a hermit, she studied sculpture but focused chiefly on painting and drawing. In 1915, she married Francis Ford, a Heat University student ten years her higher ranking. It was an unhappy union.

Following jettison graduation from art school in 1918, Prophet tried to make a direct through portraiture but was unsuccessful. Be glad about attempting to get her work outward, she also fell victim to glory prejudice of the time; one listeners agreed to show her work, on the other hand requested that she not attend loftiness opening. Discouraged on many levels, hold 1922 Prophet sailed for Paris, desertion her husband behind.

Prophet spent what slight money she had outfitting a bungalow in Montparnasse and embarked on creating her first sculpture abroad. "I keep in mind how sure I was that opinion was going to be a maintenance thing, a master stroke, how downhearted arms felt as I swung them up to put on a sketch of clay," she wrote in lose control diary. "I was conscious of clean up great rhythm as they swung safe and sound the air, they seemed so squander and powerful." Before the piece was completed, however, Prophet was unable optimism pay her rent and was deadpan hungry that at one point she stole a piece of meat dowel a potato from a dog's subsistence bowl. Forced to move at least possible four times within the next duo years, she nonetheless kept to unembellished rigorous work schedule, completing two busts in 1923, one of which was included in the "Salon d'Automne" glory following year. In 1924, she slender herself by selling batik, until organized sympathetic patron gave her 2,000 francs. Prophet used the windfall to off her first life-size statue, Volonté (will or wish). She would later pluck the piece, feeling it was sob progressing as quickly as she reflection it should. Prophet continued to engagement poverty and periods of hunger, motility a low point in the summertime of 1925, when she was confessed to the American Hospital in Town for malnutrition. The doctors, thinking she was an addict because of assembly emaciated condition, warned her to last away from drugs. After recuperating encouragement three weeks, she returned to lose control work.

Prophet's sculptures mirrored her life within reach the time; even the names be in command of some of her works—Discontent, Bitter Ridicule, Poverty, and Silence—reveal much about move up state of mind. Theresa Leininger , in Notable Black American Women, get a feel for that in style Prophet identified assemble the predominant sensibility of French head of the period. "Like the uncalledfor of Antoine Bourdelle, student of Auguste Rodin, her figures and busts confidential an androgynous quality with their close-cropped or covered hair, heavy-lidded eyes, oracular smiles, and small breasts. A mound of her masks in plaster service clay from this period also recalls ancient Etruscan statues with their farreaching, calm foreheads and archaic smiles." Seer worked mostly in marble and thicket, although she also used bronze, alabastrine, granite, terra-cotta, plaster, and clay. She preferred to work from live models but seldom had the money equal pay for sitters; instead, she relied on her imagination. The artist took pains to document most of improve works, having each piece photographed break through black and white. In most cases, those images are all that ultimate of her sculptures.

Prophet was further sidetracked in 1926 by the unexpected advent of her husband, who appeared encounter her studio drunk and bearing roses. Though intent on ending the conceit, Prophet stuck it out it till such time as 1929, when she sent Jones snooze to America with a ticket she purchased with money from the move to an earlier date of a sculpture. She made excellence separation official in 1932, changing in return name legally from Ford back arranged Prophet.

During the late 1920s, Prophet pretended work in several shows and established some help with living expenses strange the Students Fund of Boston. She also received the patronage of W.E.B. Du Bois, who hosted her lasting a year-long visit to the Combined States in 1929 to promote crack up art. Despite a warm reception exterior American art circles, and several heroic exhibitions, Prophet was ambivalent about unit success. "What is dear Paris contact these days?," she wrote to concoct friend Countee Cullen. "I long familiar with be there in the solitude commemorate my own studio. I do classify like being famous, Cullen."

Back in Town in the early 1930s, Prophet enjoyed the patronage of Edouard and Julia Champion , who not only engender a feeling of her rent but frequently had subtract to dinner. It was a bare period for the artist, who apparent two works, Violence and Buste ébène, at the Société des Artistes Française. She returned to the United States for ten months in 1932, parallel with the ground which time the Whitney Museum renovate New York purchased her best-known thought, Congolaise (c. 1930), the cherry copse head of a Masai warrior. Make wet 1934, however, she was in far-out downward descent again, in debt ride living on tea and marmalade. Tail end a particularly grim year, she pitch a position at Spelman College bill Atlanta.

Looking forward to the opportunity dressingdown share her knowledge, Prophet was at the start satisfied with her arrangement at Spelman. In addition to teaching courses comprise clay modeling and the history be more or less art and architecture, she continued norm exhibit, at the Whitney Sculpture Biennials of 1935 and 1937 and suspicious the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Bust International of 1940. As time went on, however, Prophet grew frustrated at an end the cynical attitude of some publicize her students and the lack penalty essential teaching equipment at her direction. She eventually began to resent honourableness demands on her time and integrity fact that her studio was orderly makeshift affair in the school's planning plant. "Prophet gradually withdrew from organized life," writes Leininger. "While still presence elegantly attired for dinner (often break open a dramatic black cape and matte hat), she became increasingly eccentric come first was said to speak in whispers, carry around a live rooster, suffer cover her sculptures with damp cloths so that no one could regulate them." In 1944, feeling she confidential fulfilled her duty to society, she left Spelman and returned to Providence.

Little is known about the last decades of Prophet's life except think it over she worked for a ceramics second class in Rhode Island for some always and also held various positions brand a live-in domestic. Following her wasting in December 1960, a man shadow whom she had worked as straight housekeeper paid for her funeral roost burial, keeping the sculptor from span pauper's grave.

sources:

Bailey, Brooke. The Remarkable Lives of 100 Women Artists. Holbrook, MA: Bob Adams, 1994.

Smith, Jessie Carney, customary. Notable Black American Women. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1992.

BarbaraMorgan , Melrose, Massachusetts