Sculpture made famous by its appearance on a book cover
32°04′41″N
81°05′42″W
/
32.078°N 81.095°W
/
32.078; -81.095
Jepson Center location
Front view
Bird Girl
is a sculpture made in 1936 by
Sylvia Shaw Judson
in
Lake Forest, Illinois
. It was sculpted at
Ragdale
, her family's summer home, and achieved fame when it was featured on the cover of the 1994 non-fiction novel
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
. Originally exhibited as
Girl with Bowls
at the
Art Institute of Chicago
in 1938, it was also exhibited as
Fountain Figure
,
Standing Figure
, and
Peasant Girl
. A 1967 book by Judson first referred to it as
Bird Girl
.
[1]
[2]
[3]
Description
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]
Bird Girl
is cast in
bronze
and stands 50 inches (130 cm) tall. She is the image of a young girl wearing a simple dress and a sad or contemplative expression "...that stands solid and quietly, a strong and simple form", "... a serene spirit that offers us in this troubled age the tranquility we find too seldom".
The work was originally commissioned as a garden sculpture for a family in
Massachusetts
. A slight, eight-year-old model named Lorraine Greenman (now Lorraine Ganz) posed for the piece.
[5]
She stands straight with her head tilted toward her left shoulder, her elbows propped against her waist as she holds up two bowls out from her sides. "Bird Girl's pose does not actually symbolize the weighing of good and evil, rather, the bowls in her upturned hands were intended to hold food or water for birds. She was also originally designed to potentially function as a fountain, as indicated by the small holes in the bottom of her bowls and the slots at the front for water to overflow."
[6]
The inscription on the pedestal reads: "
We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. II Corinthians 5:8
"
Original casts
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First sculpted in clay, the statue was cast six times, once in lead and five times in bronze, between 1937 and 1940 according to records from the Roman Bronze Works in New York City, but later correspondence from the sculptor mentioned only four casts.
Four original bronze casts are currently known: one went to Massachusetts and is now in the Edward L. Ryerson Conservation Area in Riverwoods, IL; one went to a Washington, DC, garden and then to Reading, PA; another was bought by a Lake Forest, IL resident and is still there; and the fourth went to Savannah.
[1]
[3]
[8]
The most famous version was purchased by a Savannah family who named it
Little Wendy
and set it up at the family's plot in
Bonaventure Cemetery
with the inscribed pedestal. It has since been relocated to the
Telfair Academy
, where it is on display for museum visitors. Judson donated the original plaster model to the
Crow Island School
in
Winnetka, Illinois
.
[9]
Book cover
[
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The
Bonaventure Cemetery
statue sat virtually unnoticed until 1993, when
Random House
hired Savannah photographer
Jack Leigh
to shoot an image for the cover of
John Berendt
's new book,
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
. At Berendt's suggestion, Leigh searched the Bonaventure Cemetery for a suitable subject. He found the sculpture next to a grave on the Trosdal family plot, at the end of his second day of searching, and had to make the shot quickly as dusk approached. He reportedly spent ten hours in the
darkroom
adjusting the lighting, giving the photo a moonlit feel and accentuating the halo around the statue's head.
[9]
[10]
The cover image, titled "Midnight, Bonaventure Cemetery", was an immediate hit, and Berendt called it "one of the strongest book covers I've ever seen". The book, published in 1994, became an all time bestseller, and soon people began flocking to Bonaventure Cemetery to see the sculpture. Due to concern about the amount of traffic at the grave site, the Trosdal family had it removed from the cemetery and later lent it to the
Telfair Museums
in Savannah, for public display in their
Telfair Academy
building. In December 2014, the statue was moved from the Telfair Academy to the Telfair Museums' nearby
Jepson Center for the Arts
. As of April 2019, she is in a special exhibit at the Telfair Academy.
[1]
Additional casts
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In 1995, Judson's daughter Alice Judson Hayes (aka Alice Ryerson Hayes) had an additional bronze statue created from a mold and gave it to the
Ragdale Foundation
, an
artist residency program
in Lake Forest.
[9]
Later, an authorized
fiberglass
replica was made from the original plaster model for use by
Macy's
in their display windows; it was later moved to Jack Leigh's studio and then to the
Savannah History Museum
.
Hayes holds the copyright for the
Bird Girl
and has actively defended it by filing lawsuits against unauthorized reproductions, especially full-sized replicas. She destroyed the mold that was used to cast the 1995 replica, although the original plaster model still exists. Hayes has licensed smaller-scale replicas, which have sold well. She died on October 13, 2006, passing on the copyright to her daughter, painter Francie Shaw.
[9]
Film use
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Warner Bros.
produced a
film adaptation
of Berendt's book in 1997, directed by
Clint Eastwood
and featuring
Kevin Spacey
and
John Cusack
. After purchasing the rights to use the sculpture's likeness from Hayes, the studio created a fiberglass replica. The movie incorporated shots of the
Bird Girl
sculpture on its posters and in the film itself. After the film was completed the replica was sent to the
Cliff Dwellers Club
in Chicago, Illinois.
[12]
Photographer Leigh sued Warner Bros. in November 1997 for
copyright infringement
over their shots of the
Bird Girl
replica in the cemetery, which were similar to Leigh's original cover photograph. The lower court ruled that the Warner sequences with the statue were not infringement, but an appeals court found that the photographs used for promotional purposes, such as posters, bore significant similarities and remanded the matter back to the lower court. Warner and Leigh then settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.
[9]
Deaths
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Sylvia Shaw Judson died in 1978. Although she did not see her
Bird Girl
sculpture achieve fame, she was already a renowned sculptor whose pieces have been on display in such
prestigious locations
as the
White House
, the
Massachusetts State House
, the
Philadelphia Museum of Art
, and the
Whitney Museum of American Art
in New York City.
[9]
[13]
Jack Leigh died of colon cancer on May 19, 2004, and is buried in Bonaventure Cemetery, where he took his most famous photograph.
[9]
References
[
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]
- ^
a
b
c
DeLorme, Harry (April 15, 2019).
"ON THE TRAIL OF THE BIRD GIRL"
.
telfair.org
. Retrieved
October 11,
2016
.
- ^
Haskins, Sylvia Shaw Judson (1967).
For Gardens and Other Places: The Sculpture of Sylvia Shaw Judson
. Chicago: H. Regnery Co.
- ^
a
b
"Lot 32 - Sylvia Shaw Judson (American, 1897-1978), Bird Girl"
.
Freeman's
. Philadelphia. June 6, 2021
. Retrieved
November 12,
2021
.
- ^
Leroux, Charles (August 25, 1999).
"Born in Chicago, Raised in Savannah"
.
Chicago Tribune
. Tribune Publishing.
Archived
from the original on May 31, 2015.
- ^
Bird Girl
(museum display description). Savannah: Telfair Academy. 2021.
- ^
The 1999 Leroux article did not mention the lead cast and quoted the sculptor's daughter on the disposition of the four known bronze casts. The Washington/Reading version was sold for $390,000 in 2021. The auction catalog detailed its provenance as the second of the four original casts and also cited the Savannah version as the fourth cast (www.freemansauction.com/auction/lot/32-sylvia-shaw-judson-american-1897-1978/?lot=567061).
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
"The Bird Girl"
.
City of Savannah
.
- ^
Leigh, Jack (1993).
"Midnight, Bonaventure Cemetery"
.
telfair.org
. Retrieved
November 10,
2021
.
- ^
Hayes, Alice Ryerson (April 2001).
"The True Story of the Bird Girl"
.
On and Off the Cliff
. Retrieved
November 10,
2021
.
- ^
Underwood, Sandra L. (2006).
The "Bird Girl": The Story of a Sculpture by Sylvia Shaw Judson
. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing.
ISBN
978-0764323706
.
External links
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