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For the American novelist with same birthname, see Nella Larsen.
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Nellie Walker
Flickr - USCapitol - Nellie V. Walker (1874-1973) - Women Artists.jpg
Born (1874-12-08)December 8, 1874
Red Oak, Iowa
Died July 10, 1973(1973-07-10) (aged 98)
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Nationality American
Known for Sculpture
NWCadillacStone6
Mitchell family marker, Cadillac, Michigan

Nellie Verne Walker (December 8, 1874 – July 10, 1973), was an American sculptor best known for her statue of James Harlan formerly in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol, Washington D.C.

Early years

Nellie Verne Walker was born in Red Oak, Iowa, the daughter of Everett Walker, a stone carver and monument maker, and Rebecca Jane Lindsay Walker. By the age of 17 she was allowed to use her father's tools and began making her own sculpture in her father's monument shop in Moulton, Iowa. Her first noteworthy work was a bust of Abraham Lincoln that was displayed at the Columbian Exposition in 1893, as an exhibit in the Iowa Building there, labeled "The work of an Iowa Girl". She was to return to the theme of Lincoln again in her career. Unable to afford to go to art school, Walker worked as a legal secretary for six years before she could obtain enough money to attend the Art Institute of Chicago.

Stratton memorial by Nellie Walker
Stratton memorial

At four foot eight (4'8") and less than a hundred pounds she seemed an unlikely candidate to be able to meet and to succeed at the very physical demands placed on a sculptor, but the teacher, Lorado Taft decided to give her a chance and they were to remain friends and co-workers for the rest of their lives. Ultimately, because of her diminutive size and her work, she became known as "the lady who lived on ladders." When Taft died in 1936, leaving much of the Heald Square Monument – a sculpture group of George Washington, Robert Morris and Haym Salomon – undone, she was one of several sculptors who were commissioned to finish the piece (1941). Not long thereafter she began getting her own commissions and so moved into studio space in the famous (in sculpture circles) Midway Studio where she shared space with Taft and other Chicago sculptors. In 1902, reclusive Colorado Springs millionaire W. S. Stratton died and someone there realized that Walker was in town and asked her to make a death mask, which she did. The family was so impressed with Walker that they commissioned her to do a bust, followed by a large carved granite cemetery marker and finally an over-life-sized statue of Stratton.

NWalkerKeokuk3
Chief Keokuk

All are still located in the Colorado Springs area.

Lorado Taft, in his groundbreaking The History of American Sculpture mentions Walker as a significant young sculptor and specifically refers to her Chief Keokuk statue. Like many other sculptors of her era Walker created both architectural and cemetery sculpture. She was a member of the National Sculpture Society and was inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame in 1987. Late in life, following the 1948 destruction of her Chicago studio, Walker moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado where she occasionally modeled pottery for the Van Briggle Pottery company, and she died there in 1973, aged 98.

Monuments

  • Lanning Fountain Sculpture, Smith College, Northampton, MA (full statue) - February 2018

    Lanning Fountain

  • Lanning Fountain Sculpture, Smith College, Northampton, MA (upper body) - February 2018

    Lanning Fountain (looking up)

  • Lanning Fountain Sculpture, Smith College, Northampton, MA (profile) - February 2018

    Lanning Fountain (profile)

Architectural sculpture

  • NWMichLeague2

    Michigan League Building

Cemetery works

  • NWDecker

    Decker Memorial

  • NWalkerStratton1

    Stratton grave site

  • NWalkerMinniapolis

    Helen McMullen

  • NWFredCarrieDiggens

    Diggins Monument

  • NWMitchell

    Mitchell

  • NWCadillacStone3

    Mitchell

  • NWCadillacStone4

    detail

  • NWCadillacStone5

    detail

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