1. Tina Allen was an American sculptor known for her monuments to prominent African Americans, including Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and George Washington Carver.
13 Facts About Tina Allen
1. 2.
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.
3.
Tina Allen's mother was a writer and a nurse, and one of Allen's uncles was a sculptor.
4.
Tina 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.
5.
Tina Allen was mentored by the Lithuanian-American sculptor William Zorach who declared her a prodigy.
6.
Tina Allen earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from the University of South Alabama in 1978.
7.
Tina Allen studied at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and received her Masters at the Pratt Institute.
8.
Tina Allen had periods of her work focus specifically on black men and then she turned her interest to black women.
9.
Tina Allen's work is collected by museums, corporations and private collectors.
10.
Tina Allen is part of the permanent collection at the Schomburg Center for Black Culture and the African-American museum in Long Island, New York.
11.
Tina Allen crafted a bronze medallion for the Women of Essence awards, which annually honor Black women of outstanding accomplishment and achievement.
12.
Tina Allen was married twice and had three children, Koryan, Josephine, and Tara.
13.
Tina Allen died of a heart attack due to complications of pneumonia in Los Angeles on September 9,2008.