Oliver LaGrone (December 9, 1906 – October 15, 1995) was an African-American sculptor, poet, educator, and humanitarian. In 1974, a post-secondary scholarship was created in his name, enlarged and refocused in 1991 for graduates of the public high school of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
LaGrone's artistic creations focused primarily on honoring African-American capacity and accomplishment. His sculptures can be seen at three campuses of The Pennsylvania State University (Harrisburg, State College, Scranton), The State Museum of Pennsylvania, at the Unitarian Church of Harrisburg, the Schomburg Center of New York City, the Albuquerque Museum, and at Albuquerque's Richardson Pavilion of the New Mexico Hospitals. Other of his sculptures are held privately. His collected poetry is held by the Special Collections Library of The Pennsylvania State University as well as by numerous other academic libraries and private collections.
Family of origin, 1906-1927 Clarence Oliver LaGrone was born December 9, 1906, in McAlester, in Indian Territory, the year before the Territory became part of the new state of Oklahoma. His father, William Lee LaGrone, born ten years after the abolition of slavery in the United States, to formerly enslaved parents,Public Opinion, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, "People who teach are the luckiest people in the world", February 21, 1981, p. 8; Oliver LaGrone Scholarship Committee Papers, Cranbrook Archives, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan had settled in Indian Territory because of the relative freedoms it afforded. William LaGrone had left Mississippi in 1895, in fear of his life following an altercation with two white men over their attack on William's mother. William had married Lula Evelyn Cochran in Alabama after she and her parents helped him recover from his flight. They migrated to Texas, seeking safety from potential pursuers.South, Gail T., Oliver LaGrone: Time Walker, a Masters thesis for The Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg, 1976, ch. 1, pp.3-4. In preparation for writing the thesis, Gail South, in addition to studying LaGrone's poetry and sculptures, taped interviews with him over the course of a year. The interactions give potency to her descriptions of his developing emotions and thought processes. In 2013 the thesis was reprinted and updated by the committee administering the Oliver LaGrone Scholarship Fund of the Unitarian Church of Harrisburg. Throughout this article, references to the work use the page numbers from the reprinted work, with chapter numbers also citing location in the original.
LaGrone's normal school-educated father served on the school board and as an ordained pastor of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion church.Press Journal, Middletown, Pennsylvania, "Sculptor Oliver LaGrone Recalls a Mother's Note", Vol. 85, No. 35, August 27, 1975, pp. 1-2; Oliver LaGrone Scholarship Committee Papers, Cranbrook Archives, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan Education was important to William LaGrone, particularly educating blacks in the importance of their heritage, a legacy that informed his son's life's work.Myers, Julia R., Harold Neal and Detroit African American Artists: 1945 Through the Black Arts Movement, Eastern Michigan University Art Galleries, 2020, p.10; Myers treats LaGrone in a distinct section, as well as in embedded references to Harold Neal's respect for LaGrone the man and artist. "My father was a gifted writer, and also a builder, and extremely creative," LaGrone recalled. "He regaled us with his poems. I was brought up in an environment like that."Albuquerque Journal, Albuquerque, New Mexico, "Ex-N.M. Sculptor LaGrone Hard at Work at 87", January 16, 1994, Section G, p.9, by Marsha Miro for Knight-Ridder newspapers; copy from Albuquerque Museum files in Oliver LaGrone Scholarship Committee Papers, Cranbrook Archives, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan LaGrone credited his mother as a pillar in his artistic and emotional development."A Prince Hall Place Resident Profile: Oliver LaGrone", Prince Hall Place newsletter, Detroit, Winter 1994; C. Oliver LaGrone Papers, Cranbrook Archives, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan "My parents had beautiful voices. I patterned my speech after theirs," LaGrone commented during a newspaper interview in his later years.Middletown Press Journal, Middletown, Pennsylvania, "Sculptor Oliver LaGrone Recalls A Mother's Note", August 31, 1973; C. Oliver LaGrone Papers, Cranbrook Archives, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
The LaGrone family owned property and were community leaders. In 1929, repeated dangerously expressed jealousy over their accomplishments drove them to move from the several small towns in which they had hoped for peace in Okmulgee County, Oklahoma, to Albuquerque, New Mexico.Time Walker, ch. 1, p. 5 and ch. 3, p. 12
College years, 1928-1938
Howard University LaGrone's older brother, Hobart, had attended Fisk University. After graduation he worked in Washington, D.C., and in 1928 invited his younger brother, Oliver, to live with him while working for a degree.Time Walker, ch. 2, p.9 In the fall Oliver LaGrone enrolled at Howard University, planning to become a lawyer.
LaGrone interacted closely with faculty member Dr. Carter G. Woodson, "Father of Black History". During the summer of 1929 he served as an assistant to Woodson, interviewing people in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma for Woodson and Lorenzo Greene's upcoming volume, The Negro Wage Earner. Additionally, LaGrone sold books on black culture promoted by Dr. Woodson. Oliver LaGrone also absorbed interest in unionism from a political science faculty member, young Dr. Ralph Bunche.Time Walker. ch. 2., p. 11
New Mexico The country's Great Economic Depression led to LaGrone having to leave Howard University after completing only his first year. The precipitous death of his father, and the disabling effects on his mother of a car accident meant his earning power was essential at home.Time Walker, ch. 4, p. 13 LaGrone and his older brother, Hobart, opened a funeral parlor to help support the family. This opportunity to study anatomy later informed Oliver LaGrone's sculpting talents."Celebrating An Artist's Life", memorial service program, Detroit, October 21, 1995Washington Daily News, "Howard University Boy Undertaker While Seeking Art Fame", April 21, 1928 He also sang for three years with a semi-professional quartet on radio programs.C. Oliver LaGrone Papers, Cranbrook Archives, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
LaGrone felt drawn to create, sculpting in the mahogany-like pinyon pine so plentiful in the New Mexico landscape. In 2005 the Unitarian Church of Harrisburg received a letter from an elderly New Mexican man who had met LaGrone while both were attending the University of New Mexico. He was hoping to find LaGrone's 1930 sculpture, "Black", carved from pinyon wood. Seventy-five years after first seeing the sculpture, he wrote, "I was shocked and speechless at the grandeur of the figure; then I walked around to look at the back of it and immediately started crying. This magnificent human being, standing so proud, had his hands chained behind his back. It was the most striking thing I had ever seen that depicted the condition of the black race living in this country. My emotional response broke down any barriers that might have existed between us. . . . During that period, there was no way I could buy any of his work, but if I could find the black man with chained hands, I would try to find whatever amount of money was required to own it for the few years I have left." The work had been long since purchased and later was given to the Detroit chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, but its image remained potent 75 years later.Correspondence to the Unitarian Church of Harrisburg from Wallace Thorp, February 28, 2005; Oliver LaGrone Scholarship Committee Papers, Cranbrook Archives, Bloomfield Hills,, Michigan "Black" was the same displayed sculpture that several years later led to LaGrone's return to college.The Patriot, "Children Throng Artist's Class", Feb. 18, 1973, p. 3 The sculpture is now privately held.
University of New Mexico Oliver LaGrone was working in Albuquerque at odd jobs, and in the household of a civil engineer whose spouse admired LaGrone's gracious manner. After seeing one of his sculptures, she took LaGrone to the president of the University of New Mexico (UNM), to assure that the young black man would be enrolled. His previously un-nurtured artistic talent came to the fore when in 1934 he began to attend the University of New Mexico, majoring in sociology and minoring in fine arts. As teaching assistant to architect-sculptor, William Emmet Burk, Jr.,Architect, sculptor, designer and teacher; Burk described further at http://www.askart.com he launched into a lifetime of expressed reflection on the intersection of sentiment and form.
Among LaGrone's UNM professors was a man who was friends with the roving journalist Ernie Pyle. From 1935 to 1941, Pyle was visiting America's small towns, creating Scripps-Howard syndicated newspaper columns as he went. The two men stopped by a university art exhibit which included work by LaGrone. Pyle then devoted one of his 1938 columns to LaGrone's sculptural talents.Time Walker, ch. 4, pp. 14-15Albuquerque Tribune,"Seeing New Mexico", 1938; LaGrone Curriculum Vitae 1988, LaGrone Art Culture ProgramsCorrespondence from Ernie Pyle to Oliver LaGrone, May 21, 1938, copy from Albuquerque Museum artist files; Oliver LaGrone Scholarship Committee Papers, Cranbrook Archives, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan "I know of nothing that would please me more than to have written the first piece in public print about a man who would someday be referred to all over the world as 'Oliver LaGrone--you know, the sculptor,'" wrote Pyle.Philadelphia Daily News, "LaGrone: a 'Living Legend in Black'", April 30, 1982, by Chuck Stone; C. Oliver LaGrone Papers, Cranbrook Archives, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
Works Progress Administration
LaGrone was among artists assisted by the Federal Art Project arm of the Works Progress Administration.WPA photo of LaGrone sculpting in New Mexico, taken in 1930s by Kelly Williams, not indexed until 1958 In 1937 he won a competition to create a sculpture for the then new Carrie Tingley Children's Hospital, an institution established to address the increasing incidence of infantile paralysis. The sculpture Mercy reflects LaGrone's Oklahoma memories of his mother caring for him during repeated and lengthy childhood bouts with malaria.LaGrone letter to Greg Johnson, Director, Public Relations, Carrie Tingley Hospital, University NM, Albuquerque, New Mexico, June 3, 1985; copy from Albuquerque Museum file on LaGrone; Oliver LaGrone Scholarship Committee Papers, Cranbrook Archives, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan His 1937 cast marblestone sculpture was recast in bronze in 1991 for display in Albuquerque. One casting was placed in the Richardson Pavilion of the University of New Mexico hospital housing the previously relocated Tingley Hospital, on the floor dedicated to specialized care for children with orthopedic or chronic physical rehabilitation problems. Another casting of Mercy is displayed in the sculpture garden of the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History.Flynn, Kathryn A. and Andrew Connors, Treasures on New Mexico Trails: Discover New Deal Art and Architecture Sunstone Press, 1995.
Marriage