Willa Cather Statue

Nebraska gave this statue of Cather to the National Statuary Hall Collection in 2023. Littleton Alston (1958- ) is the first African American sculptor to be represented in this collection.

Alston depicts Cather at around age 40, at the age when she began focusing on writing novels, having lived through the flu pandemic and World War I (WWI). He places her on the Nebraska prairie, drawing inspiration from the landscape during a "field research" session. She grasps a walking stick as she strides forward, protected by a brimmed hat and sturdy shoes. Alston's research revealed that Cather loved fashion, represented in the statue by the snake ring on her left hand and the wool jacket with embroidered details given to her by one of her editors.

Although she is identified with Nebraska, Cather was born in Virginia. Her family moved to Nebraska when she was 9, and the new environment and people she met made an indelible impression on her. In the statue, the prairie seems to rise around Cather; grasses undulate around her feet while goldenrod, the state flower, clings to her skirt and directs the viewer's gaze upward. The movement of the grasses and the flow of Cather's skirt suggest the wind moving over the prairie. A western meadowlark, Nebraska's state bird, emerges from the goldenrod. It references Cather's novel Song of Lark (1915), which chronicles the development of an artist, and Alston considers the bird's rise here representative of the "startling of new creative genius."

The broken and half-buried wagon wheel behind Cather references the hard work and challenges faced by Nebraska settlers struggling to survive the westward journey and prairie existence described in such novels as O Pioneers! (1913) and My Ántonia (1918). Cather, however, also explored other settings and periods in her novels. She won a Pulitzer Prize for 1922's One of Ours, inspired in part by a cousin's death while fighting in WWI; Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927), set in the desert southwest, often appears on lists of best modern literature. Although she lived in New York for much of her adult life and summered in Maine for more than 15 years, Cather returned to Red Cloud, Nebraska, regularly until her mother's death in 1931, reacquainting herself with the people and places that inspired so much of her fiction. Much as this statue conjures the plains, Cather excelled at evoking a sense of place — conveying in uncomplicated prose the environment, people and culture — that helped to create a sense of intimacy for readers. Many critics and readers found her use of straightforward language to tell stories of hardworking ordinary men and women a refreshing alternative to much of the era's literature, which tended to focus on cosmopolitan people of means whose problems were far removed from the settlers' struggle.

In her left hand, Cather carries a pen and sheaf of papers, ready to record any inspiration that arises as she walks. Cather's writing career began when she was a student at the University of Nebraska. She worked on several collegiate publications and as a journalist and drama critic for Lincoln newspapers, shifting her focus from medicine to publishing after a professor submitted one of her essays to the Lincoln Journal. After graduating, she worked as a journalist, critic and editor in Pittsburgh and then at McClure's in New York City, where she was the managing editor from 1908 to 1912. Before she left full-time editorial work, she had met Edith Lewis, who was both her longtime companion and an editorial collaborator for Cather's fiction. By the time of her death in 1947, Cather had written 12 novels, six collections of short fiction, two editions of a book of poetry, and numerous other works of nonfiction, collected journalism, speeches and letters.

Alston referred to photographs of Cather's pen as he worked; she continued to write by hand, even assisted by a device after she developed a painful condition in her hand and wrist. Cather's handwriting appears twice on the statue: in her signature on the self-base, and in a passage from My Ántonia copied on the papers she carries.

Cautiously I slipped from under the buffalo hide, got up on my knees and peered over the side of the wagon. There seemed to be nothing to see; no fences, no creeks or trees, no hills or fields. If there was a road, I could not make it out in the faint starlight. There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made.

The young narrator's description of his arrival in Nebraska seems to match 9-year-old Cather's response to her first experience of the vast plains.

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.

Artist

Littleton Alston grew up in Washington, D.C. He and his brothers explored nearby neighborhoods and the National Mall on their bicycles, splashing through reflecting pools, eavesdropping on tours in the U.S. Capitol, and subconsciously absorbing the monumental landscape and its public art. Alston was intrigued by sculpture as a young child, and his mother, recognizing his artistic talent, took him to apply to the then-new high school Duke Ellington School of the Arts. Despite long cross-town commutes, Alston thrived and concluded his high school years by winning a senior art prize. He earned a scholarship and attended Virginia Commonwealth University, where he majored in sculpture. Alston completed an M.F.A. at the Maryland Institute College of Arts Rinehart Graduate School of Sculpture and then worked under several experienced sculptors. In 1989, he had a residency at the Bemis Center of Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska. In later years Alston studied in Italy and France, where he further explored the sculpting practices that underpin his work in figurative representation; he also studied anatomy at the Creighton University College of Medicine.

Alston joined the faculty of Creighton University in 1990 and is now a full professor of sculpture. He maintains a private studio in addition to teaching. Alston exhibits work regularly and has completed dozens of public commissions. He was selected from more than 70 applicants to sculpt this statue of Cather. In reflecting on his childhood in Washington and his adulthood based in Nebraska, Alston observed that people in the Midwest, like coastal people, have a way of looking far off. He noted that he started life with a sense of denseness and verticality, but that years in Omaha and the vast spaces around it have shifted his awareness to the horizontal. After more than 40 years living and working in the state, he considers himself a Nebraskan.

Alston immersed himself in Cather's work and image, including visits to Red Cloud, Nebraska, as he worked on this sculpture; he listened to recordings of her books as he worked. He was interested in depicting Cather striding along the prairie, but also "moving through time."¹ Alston connects her formative geographic journey — from Virginia to Nebraska — to his own path from the Washington area to Nebraska. His goal with figurative representation is to capture more than a subject's likeness, but also a sense of self and a presence that transcends the details.

^1. LITTLETON ALSTON, INTERVIEW INCLUDED IN "SCULPTING HISTORY" BY CAT WISE, PBS NEWSHOUR, DECEMBER 20, 2022, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/nebraska-sculptor-becomes-first-african-american-with-work-displayed-in-statuary-hall.