Domestic Life
Non-traditional life in Framingham
After settling down, Dr. Solomon Fuller expected his wife to take on a traditional housewife role, forfeiting her career. However, Meta had a different plan. She became an active participant in the community's Civic League productions and involved herself with activist organizations like the Women's Club.
However, her biggest act of defiance was when she built her own art studio without her husband's knowledge. In the late 1920s, having acquired the funds through her inheritance, Meta secretly built a studio a few blocks from their house. One day when the couple was walking a few years later, Meta pointed to the house and informed her husband that it was her studio. Stunned, Solomon grew angry that his wife defied his authority and did not ask for his permission first. Still, he was impressed that she was able to carry out such an endeavor on her own.
Meeting the psychiatrist
In 1909, Meta Vaux Warrick married Dr. Solomon Carter Fuller, a man from Liberia, and the first black psychiatrist. At the time, he had been working at the Westboro State Hospital as a pathologist. Together, they settled in Framingham on 31 Warren Road. Here, they began to build their family. During this time, Meta's work shifted from sculpture to portraiture and took on more religious themes, temporarily lacking the same "power," according to the sculptor Auguste Rodin, of her previous pieces.
Having already challenged boundaries in the art world, politics, and within her very own community in Framingham, Meta set to do the same in her domestic life. Even after her husband imposed his wishes for her to become a traditional housewife, Meta prioritized her creative aspirations and sense of free will over her imposed duty, even building her own art studio without her husband's knowledge.
Meta in her Studio on 135 Warren Street
The Danforth Museum
Solomon Fuller
Boston University
I would go there to bring her some tea and talk to her, and she would tell me some things, but she was very quiet and reserved.
- David Fuller
David Fuller on Meta's domestic life
David Fuller reflects on how he first learned about Meta's reputation, the nature of her relationship with Solomon, and the dubious quality of her cooking.
Sources
Perkins, Kathy A. “The Genius of Meta Warrick Fuller.” Black American Literature Forum 24, no. 1 (1990): 65–72. https://doi.org/10.2307/2904066.
“Meta Warrick Fuller.” Columbia University. Accessed March 23, 2026. https://reidhall.globalcenters.columbia.edu/metafuller.
Hoover, Velma J. “META VAUX WARRICK FULLER: HER LIFE AND HER ART.” Negro History Bulletin 40, no. 2 (1977): 678–81. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44176711.
Interview