Rhode Island Slave History Medallions (RISHM) continues its mission of marking the landscape by telling the untold stories of real-life Africans, African Americans and Indigenous people who walked our streets, honed their skills and crafts, raised their families, and tilled our verdant land during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, right here in Rhode Island. RISHM’s latest “marking the landscape” initiative is currently underway. We will erect a life-size statue of 19th century Black entrepreneur, abolitionist and activist George T. Downing. I spotlighted Mr. Downing and his legacy in Newport in a recent #BHM VOICES article for WUN.
We have selected the most talented figurative artist and sculptor we could hope for to envision and realize this highly anticipated and important public work of art. The monument will be erected on Bellevue Avenue, across from the “Downing Block” where Mr. Downing famously built the Sea Girt Hotel at the dawn of the Gilded Age.
Vinnie Bagwell, American Sculptor
Vinnie Bagwell preserves African-American history by creating art for public places. She is a 2022-2023 inductee for the Who’s Who in America for sculpture. A representational-figurative artist, Vinnie uses traditional bas-relief techniques as visual narratives to expand her storytelling.
Vinnie Bagwell was born in Yonkers and grew up in the Town of Greenburgh, NY. A Morgan State University alumna, Vinnie is an untutored artist who began sculpting in 1993. Her first public artwork, “The First Lady of Jazz Ella Fitzgerald” for the City of Yonkers was the first sculpture of a contemporary African-American woman to be commissioned by a municipality in the U.S. Also in Yonkers, Vinnie recently installed the “Enslaved Africans’ Rain Garden”, an urban-heritage sculpture garden, featuring five life-sized bronze statues on an acre of land on the Hudson River.
Other notable public art works of Bagwell’s include: “Victory Beyond Sims”, a $1M public art commission that will replace the J. Marion Sims sculpture on Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street in Manhattan; “Waiting for Auction” at the new Freedom Monument Sculpture Park [AL]; “‘I AM A MAN!’ The Reverend James Lawson, Jr.” at Penn State University [PA]; “‘What’s Going On!’ Marvin Gaye” [Washington, DC]; a seven-foot “Sojourner Truth” monument at the Walkway Over the Hudson’s Welcome Center [NY], near to where Truth was born into slavery as Isabella Baumfree, circa 1797; and “Walter ‘Doc’ Hurley”, the first sculpture of a contemporary African American in Connecticut.
In keeping with Downing’s dignified and eloquent style – and the influential people he associated with, such as abolitionists Frederick Douglass and Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, Bagwell has chosen to call this Newport public work of art “Among Giants.”
As an artist and collector, when I first saw Bagwell’s sculpture garden featuring African Art and the sculptures she has created which represent many of my heroes – people like Frederick Douglass, Ella Fitzgerald, Harriet Tubman, W.E.B. DuBois, and Sojourner Truth – I felt at last I had found an artist who could inspire a monumental tribute to the stories of my ancestors and give visual representation to their legacies. After seeing the concept for the elegant art piece Bagwell has created of Downing for Newport, I asked her why she chose “Among Giants” as the title for this epic work of public art. Bagwell replied, “He was the son of a giant, as well as the best friend and professional associate of giants in the civil-rights movement of that era”.
Bagwell continued, “My vision is a means by which to provoke critical thinking as well as give voice to our stories and meaning to our legacies. For this reason, being selected to create a life-size monument to this larger-than-life man who was known as a man of dignity and purpose, is truly an honor.”
RISHM is actively working with city leaders and Bagwell to make this public monument a permanent part of Newport’s Historic Hill landscape in the near future.
For more information as this exciting project unfolds, and to donate to this important public art initiative, please visit www.rishm.org. To learn more about Vinnie Bagwell, visit vinniebagwell.com.
Charles L. Roberts is Executive Director and Founder of Rhode Island Slave History Medallions, www.rishm.org.
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