When a bronze statue of Willa Cather in early June, it was a historic moment. Not only because of the subject of the artwork – Cather is just the twelfth woman represented in Statuary Hall and first Pulitzer Prize winner – but because the sculptor, Littleton Alston ’83 (), is the first Black artist with work in this national collection.
Featuring two statues from each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, the figures within Statuary Hall offer a unique visual history of our country’s past. The collection also demonstrates how we are changing as a nation.
For much of its existence, the majority of figures in the collection represented white, male politicians. But since 2000, 11 states have replaced statues and five more are slated to do so in the near future. Cather joined Ponca Chief Standing Bear (2019) as one of two new sculptures from Nebraska. Other recent and pending additions include civil rights leaders, suffragists, inventors, and environmental activists. The movement acknowledges the many ways Americans serve their country and adds diversity that is critical to understanding our history.
With his sculpture of Cather, Alston joins MICA community members whose creations are adding to the twenty first century’s expanding historical and cultural narrative – faculty , whose portrait of Thurgood Marshall hangs in the Maryland Senate Building, (), who painted the official portrait of late congressman Elijah E. Cummings, (), who painted President Barack Obama’s official White House portrait, and (), who painted the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery’s official portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama.