{{short description|American sculptor}} {{Use mdy dates|date=September 2016}} {{Infobox artist |name = Tina Allen |image = Tina_Allen.jpg |image_size = |caption = Allen and her statue of Frederick Douglass |birth_date = {{birth date |1949|12|9}} |birth_name = Tina Powell |birth_place = Hempstead, New York City |death_date = {{death date and age|2008|9|9|1949|12|9}} |death_place = Los Angeles |field = Sculpture |training = {{ubl|University of South Alabama|School of Visual Arts|Pratt Institute}} }}
'''Tina Allen''' (December 9, 1949 – September 9, 2008) was an American sculptor known for her monuments to prominent African Americans, including Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and George Washington Carver.
==Early life and education<span class="anchor" id="Early life and education and more"></span>== Allen was born Tina Powell in Hempstead, New York in 1949 to father Gordon "Specs" Powell, a jazz drummer who played in the Ed Sullivan Show band, and Grenada-born Rosecleer Powell.<ref name='laobit'/> Her mother was a writer and a nurse, and one of Allen's uncles was a sculptor. Allen began painting at 5 years old; by the time she was 10 she was setting up her easel to paint the seascape of Grenada, West Indies where she lived until her early teens.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|title=Sculptor Tina Allen|last=Toussaint|first=Pamela|date=May 1988|work=Essence Communications, Inc.}}</ref> Allen's parents divorced when she was young. She lived with her mother for four years. While living with her mother in New York city, she met a sculptor by the name of William Zorach who later on became her mentor.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Rourke |first=Mary |date=2008-09-12 |title=L.A. sculptor whose subject was African Americans |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-sep-12-me-allen12-story.html |access-date=2023-12-12 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}}</ref>
Allen was an artistic child who began sculpting at the age of 13, when she was assigned to make an ashtray and instead created a bust of Aristotle.<ref name='about'>{{cite web |url=http://www.journalnma.org/article/S0027-9684(15)31502-9/pdf |title=About the Cover |publisher=Journal of The National Medical Association |volume=100 |issue=10 |date=October 2008 |page=1115}}</ref> She was mentored by the Lithuanian-American sculptor William Zorach who declared her a prodigy.<ref name='about'/> She earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from the University of South Alabama in 1978.<ref name=laobit>{{cite news|last1=Rourke|first1=Mary|title=L.A. sculptor whose subject was African Americans|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-sep-12-me-allen12-story.html|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=September 12, 2008}}</ref> She also studied at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and received her Masters at the Pratt Institute.<ref name=":0" />
People described her art as a history in bronze because she always focused on important black historical figures and wanted to portray them through sculpture.<ref name="funk">{{Cite news|url=http://museumofuncutfunk.com/2013/04/15/sculptor-tina-allen/|title=Sculptor Tina Allen|date=2013-04-15|work=The Museum Of UnCut Funk|access-date=2017-12-05|language=en-US}}</ref> Allen often focused on the Harlem Renaissance. She also had periods of her work focus specifically on black men and then she turned her interest to black women.<ref name="funk"/>
After college she volunteered for AmeriCorps VISTA and for several years hosted a local television show on the arts in Mobile, Alabama.<ref name=hawkins>{{cite web|last1=Hawkins|first1=Shirley|title=Sculptor Tina Allen passes|url=http://ourweekly.com/news/2008/sep/10/sculptor-tina-allen-passes/|website=Our Weekly|date=September 10, 2008}}</ref>
==Career== Allen's first major work was a nine-foot bronze statue of A. Philip Randolph, leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Commissioned in 1986, the piece is displayed in Boston's Back Bay commuter train station and is featured on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail.<ref name=bwht>{{cite web|title=South End Walk|url=http://bwht.org/south-end/|website=Boston Women's Heritage Trail}}</ref>
Over the next two decades Allen continued creating realistic sculptures of black activists for display in public spaces. Her work is also collected by museums, corporations and private collectors.<ref name="laobit" /> Explaining her motivation, she said in an interview, "My work is not about me, it's about us."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Painter|first1=Nell I.|author-link=Nell Irvin Painter|title=Creating Black Americans: African-American History and Its Meanings, 1619 to the Present|year=2006|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780195137552|page=417|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=83teYXulg5kC&pg=PA417}}</ref> Not only does her work serve to emphasize the contributions and aspirations of the African Diaspora but also works to create a "visual landscape that is nurturing and life affirming to people of color" in celebrating the beauty of African Americans.<ref name='about'/>
One of her best known works is a 13-foot bronze likeness of Alex Haley, which was installed in the Haley Heritage Square Park in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1998.<ref name=":1">{{Cite news|title=Tina Allen: artwork in good hands|last=Gregory|first=Deborah|date=March 2002|work=Essence Communications, Inc.}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=A Statue in Tennessee Honors Alex Haley|newspaper=The New York Times|agency=Associated Press|date=April 25, 1998|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/25/us/a-statue-in-tennessee-honors-alex-haley.html}}</ref> Her statue of George Washington Carver is the focal point of the George Washington Carver Garden at the Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis.<ref>{{cite web|title=General Display Gardens Tour|url=http://www.mobot.org/hort/tours/gendisptour.shtml|website=Missouri Botanical Garden}}</ref> Her 12-foot bronze monument to Sojourner Truth is displayed in Memorial Park Battle Creek, Michigan.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{cite web|title=Monument Park|url=http://www.sojournertruth.org/Monuments/MonumentParkProject_Menu.htm|website=SojournerTruth.org}}</ref> Her bust of Frederick Douglass is on display at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute; it was featured in a scene in the movie ''Akeelah and the Bee''.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Gray|first1=Jeremy|title=Sculptor whose work adorns Civil Rights Institute dies|url=http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2008/09/sculptor_whose_work_adorns_civ.html|website=Alabama.com|date=September 15, 2008}}</ref><ref name="laobit" /> She is part of the permanent collection at the Schomburg Center for Black Culture and the African-American museum in Long Island, New York.<ref name=":0" /> Allen also crafted a bronze medallion for the Women of Essence awards, which annually honor Black women of outstanding accomplishment and achievement.<ref name=":0" /> Other subjects include Ralph Bunche, Sammy Davis Jr., Charles R. Drew, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King Jr., Betty Shabazz, Tupac Shakur,<ref name="hawkins" /> Nat King Cole, James Baldwin, and Dorothy Dandridge.<ref name=":0" />
==Personal life== Allen was married twice and had three children, Koryan, Josephine, and Tara. She died of a heart attack due to complications of pneumonia in Los Angeles on September 9, 2008.<ref name="hawkins" />
==References== {{Reflist|30em}}
==Further reading== * {{cite book|title=Songs of Bronze: Sculptures by Tina Allen|last1=Dickerson|first1=Joy E.|date=2007|publisher=Zaner-Bloser|location=Columbus, Ohio|isbn=9780736718615}}
==External links== * {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20160611040757/http://www.publicartboston.com/sites/default/files/node_images/APRandolph.jpg Statue of A. Philip Randolph, Back Bay Station, Boston]}} * [http://www.mobot.org/hort/img/110106carverfallcolor1a.jpg Statue of George Washington Carver, Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis] * [http://www.sojournertruth.org/images/JohnsonFamily.jpg Sojourner Truth memorial, Monument Park, Battle Creek, Michigan]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Allen, Tina}} Category:1949 births Category:2008 deaths Category:African-American sculptors Category:Sculptors from Los Angeles Category:Sculptors from New York (state) Category:People from Hempstead (village), New York Category:Pratt Institute alumni Category:University of South Alabama alumni Category:20th-century American women sculptors Category:20th-century American sculptors Category:20th-century African-American artists Category:21st-century African-American artists Category:21st-century African-American women Category:African-American women sculptors Category:20th-century African-American women artists