Willa, Again, And Sculptor Littleton Alston Making History
Cather belongs to New Hampshire, too.
Nebraska has been in the news for its world record-breaking attendance at a women’s sporting event. But I like it better for its recent contribution to the arts.
If you’ve been a reader of Artful for some time, you may remember my quest to introduce myself to the late author Willa Cather at her gravesite in nearby Jaffrey, New Hampshire. I was captivated by My Antonia as a young girl and later, on a trip to Quebec City, loved reading her Shadows on the Rock in situ. Most astonishing, in researching my previous post, I discovered that Ms. Cather and I had once lived in the same Pittsburgh neighborhood, albeit not at the same time, and shared a sense of misery when leaving Paris.
Imagine my surprise when a few nights ago on the usually fusty C-SPAN, I discovered Willa anew. The state of Nebraska had commissioned a statue of Willa Cather, and C-SPAN was airing the ceremony of its installation in the famed United States Capitol’s Statuary Hall. The artist, Littleton Alston, was chosen from among 70 applicants to create the work. He has become the first African-American artist to have a sculpture in Statuary Hall. And Willa Cather is only the 12th woman (of 100 sculptures) to be so honored, as well as the first Pulitzer Prize winner.
Nebraska claims her as its own, of course, for her childhood (though not her birth) in the town of Red Cloud and for her many writings depicting life in the Great Plains. But not so fast, Nebraska. Cather came to Jaffrey, New Hampshire in 1917 and thereafter over the next few decades, writing in the shadow of her beloved Mount Monadnock; she claimed that she did some of her best writing here. So taken was she with her New Hampshire “home” that in 1947, when Cather died in Manhattan at the age of 73, her partner Edith Lewis and some local friends fulfilled her wish to be buried in Jaffrey. And so, we in New Hampshire see her very clearly as one of us, too.
The statue and granite pedestal stand 10 feet tall and weigh nearly 1,200 pounds. The gold inscription on the front reads:
NEBRASKA
Willa Cather
AUTHOR
1873-1947
"The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman."
O PIONEERS!
The statue of Cather was unveiled in National Statuary Hall on June 7, 2023. It was later placed in the Capitol Visitor Center overlooking Emancipation Hall.
Click here for more information about the statue and the artist, and for a link to view the installation ceremony at the U.S. Capitol. But even better, take a look (here) at a short video from the PBS News Hour featuring the remarkable journey of the sculptor, Littleton Alston, from his poor childhood neighborhood in Washington D.C to, in his words, “a full circle moment” when he was chosen as the artist for the Cather sculpture.
(Photo credits: Architect of the Capitol, public domain)
**********************************************
Free facts: My husband, poking about bookshelves containing books of his forebears, discovered a 1923 edition of Cather’s A Lost Lady. The book is recognized as having influenced Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, so much so that “Fitzgerald later wrote a letter to Cather apologizing for any unintentional plagiarism.[2]” Barbara Stanwyck starred in the movie version, which Cather disliked so much she refused to grant film rights to any of her other works. (Wikipedia) But in later years My Antonia made it to the screen—starring a young Neil Patrick Harris.
**********************************************
Big news . . . Our numbers have surged to well over 2500 subscribers! Thank you! You’re reading Artful, a blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley, and I hope you’ll subscribe and then share this with your friends and on your social media.
The Hopkins Center for the Arts helps support Artful and joins Artful in celebrating those who love, make and share the art in our community. Explore the 2023-2024 season at the Hop.
And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.