JUDSON

CLAY 1892 – 1960   SYLVIA SHAW 1897 – 1976

Alongside one of the avenues in the historic Graceland Cemetery in Chicago is a plain and unadorned polished granite block marking the grave of Sylvia Shaw Judson.  There is nothing about the stone that gives a hint to the artistic talent of the woman buried beneath or the fact that she created one of the most famous sculptures marking a family plot in the famed Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia.

The photo on the cover of the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt made the statue, Bird Girl, by Sylvia Shaw Judson a sensation.  So much so that readers of the book flocked to the Bonaventure Cemetery to see it, which caused the family to move the sculpture marking their family plot to the Telfair Museum.  Bird Girl now has her own room in the museum.

The image is intriguing.  The statue is plain.  The girl is expressionless as she stands there, with her head titled slightly. There she stands with her arms out holding a bowl in each hand like scales—weighing, I thought—good and evil. —not knowing whether it is a nod to the virtuous or the villainous.  But it turns out the sculptor intended the statue to adorn a garden—not a cemetery.  The two bowls were to have water in one and bird feed in the other.  Bird Girl is Shaw Judson’s most famous sculpture, but her works can be found in many places including botanical gardens, libraries, museums, schools, and churches.

Ironic that her sculpture Bird Girl should have received such fame as a grave marker while her own stone is plain and devoid of her talent as a sculptor.