"This book is a major achievement. An exemplary practitioner in the field, Ater seamlessly merges theoretical insight, social history, formal analysis, and an impressive array of primary sources. She extends observations from the related fields of literary and textual studies into her examination of Fuller's work without losing site of the specific challenges Fuller faced as a visual artist working in a particular context and genre."--Mary Ann Calo, author of
Distinction and Denial: Race, Nation and the Critical Construction of the African American Artist, 1920-1940
"Renee Ater's approach to the study of Meta Warwick Fuller's public work is both creative and resourceful, revealing the ways in which African-Americans participated in the civic life of the nation in the early twentieth-century. Thoroughly researched with attention to important archives and primary sources, this book makes a unique contribution to scholarship in the fields of American and African-American art, feminist art history, and American Studies. Moreover, in its clear prose, it would be of interest to educated general readers engaged with issues of race and public culture in the Progressive Era."--Melissa Dabakis, author of
Visualizing Labor in American Sculpture: Monuments, Manliness, and the Work Ethic
