Ruth Inge Hardison was an influential American artist born in 1914 in Portsmouth, Virginia to poor Black parents whose own parents had been slaves. After several years, her parents fled Jim Crow’s brutality and segregation settling in Brooklyn, New York. Their daughter, Inge, lived 102 years, and her life says much about American history and art that we should know, value and learn from today.
Hardison’s interest in sculpture, the art for which she is best known, began her early career in acting. After graduating from high school, she landed the role of “Topsy,” in the 1936 Broadway production of “Sweet River,” George Abbott’s adaptation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In the production, she portrayed an enslaved girl whose brutal treatment doesn’t kill her wit and kindness. She later appeared in “The Country Wife” with Ruth Gordon, and in the 1946’s production of “Anna Lucasta,” co-starring Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. While working on Broadway, she was also modeling at the Art Students League of New York, and this led to her experience working in clay. While performing in the play, What a Life she sculpted the heads of the cast members where the works were exhibited in the Mansfield Theatre lobby.
Hardison was swept by the beauty and power of this material coming from the earth and began her study of sculpture igniting her passion to express herself in the art form.
In 1957, after giving birth to her daughter, Yolande, at Mount Sinai Hospital in NYC, Hardison gave a gratitude gift of sculpture, “Mother and Daughter,” where it continues to be on display.
Hardison is best known for a series of bronze busts, which began in 1963, entitled Negro Giants in History; African Americans who fought slavery and led the struggle for civil rights. Beginning with a bust of Harriet Tubman, the series also included W.E.B. Du Bois; Martin Luther King Jr.; Paul Robeson; Frederick Douglass; and Sojourner Truth.In the 1970s she was commissioned to do another sculpture series, titled Ingenious Americans, this time depicting Black scientists, physicians, and inventors. This body of work, comprises nine portraits in bronze included Benjamin Banneker; Garrett Morgan; Lewis Howard Latimer; Granville Woods; and Dr. Daniel Hale Williams.
Alice J. Bernstein, journalist, Aesthetic Realism associate, civil rights historian.
