Biography
 innie Bagwell was born in Yonkers, New York, and grew up in the Town of Greenburgh in Westchester County. She displayed a remarkable gift for drawing at an early age and developed a passion for painting, photography, and writing in high school. A graduate of Morgan State University, Vinnie is a freelance writer and graphic designer.
Vinnie Bagwell is a lover of words and old images: Her interest in her ancestry inspired her to write “The Toone Family,” a genealogical book of her maternal-grandfather’s family. Vinnie co-authored a book titled “A Study of African-American Life in Yonkers From the Turn of the Century” with Harold A. Esannason in 1992. In the mid-90's, many followed her passion-filled articles about the diversity of Yonkers organizations, businesses and cultural events in her weekly column for the Herald Statesman/Gannett Suburban Newspapers.
An untutored artist, Vinnie began sculpting in 1993. In 1994, her commitment to the arts aided in the co-founding of Art on Main Street/ Yonkers, Inc. The non-profit, multi-cultural arts organization was instrumental in heightening the awareness of the arts as an agent of social, educational, and economic revitalization for the City. As the director of public programs for the Art on Main Street/Yonkers gallery, she managed the development of a series of provocative exhibitions and programs.
The following year, the City of Yonkers commissioned Vinnie to create a life-sized sculpture of Ella Fitzgerald to enhance the downtown-waterfront district. Five students from arts-magnet Franklin D. Roosevelt High School were chosen to participate as apprentices to enrich their exposure to media and experiences not provided in the regular curriculum. “The First Lady of Jazz Ella Fitzgerald” was installed in a plaza adjacent to the Yonkers Metro North train station in 1996. It is the first sculpture of a contemporary African-American woman to be commissioned by a municipality in the United States.
In 2003, Vinnie Bagwell was selected as a finalist for the Frederick Douglass Circle Public Art Competition for Central Park NW, in New York City. In 2004, the Highland Beach Historical Society in Maryland, commissioned Vinnie to create the first edition of the “Frederick Douglass Circle” sculpture for the Frederick Douglass Museum and Cultural Center. Then, in 2008, Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, commissioned the enlargement of “Frederick Douglass Circle” (a 6.5-foot bronze figure) for a plaza on the South Campus. In 2009, Vinnie was awarded the Westchester Arts Council ArtsAlive grant to create “W.C. Handy The Father of the Blues”, a relief sculpture for the river-front branch of the Yonkers Library.
Now, Vinnie is working with the City of Yonkers, to lead in the conception and development of a project titled "The Enslaved Africans' Rain Garden," a series of public artworks that will pay tribute to the the first enslaved Africans to be freed by law in the United States, 76 years before the Emancipation Proclamation. The project is documenting historical information that is not widely published to make it accessible through public art, a commemorative book, and a documentary film.
Vinnie Bagwell sustains our attention on many levels: Her portraits display immense spirit and verisimilitude, and have souls which grandly speak for themselves. Very much a woman of her time, Vinnie remains passionate and committed to advocating for support of community arts programs and pursuing artistic excellence through the creation of public art. |
