Artin’ Around
Mrs. Maria Whiting
Adelaide Johnson
1899
Marble
K-26-1
Adelaide Johnson (1859-1955) was a feminist sculptor from Plymouth, Illinois who gained fame at the turn of the 20th century with her sculptures of leaders of the Women’s Suffrage Movement and is best known for her sculpture, Portrait Monument to Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony which has been on display in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol Building since 1997.
This bust of Maria Whiting, the president of the all-female Knox Seminary, is an important example of Johnson’s earlier works, and also has an interesting story to go along with it.
Around 1880, Johnson was attempting to get her fist commission when her brother Charles, who attended Knox College, arranged for Johnson to make a portrait of Knox’s president, Newton Bateman. Bateman sat for the portrait and Johnson completed a plaster version, but Bateman did not offer a commission. Several years later, however, Maria Whiting saw Bateman’s bust and commissioned Johnson to make a bust of her for $800: $200 when the clay model was complete, $200 during production of the marble bust, and the rest at delivery. Whiting sat for Johnson in 1894 and paid Johnson for the clay model, but died before Johnson began work on the marble version. Whiting’s estate did not continue to pay Johnson, and Johnson did not continue work on the bust. Eventually, the issue had to be resolved in court; it was decided that Johnson was entitled to $600, but had to complete the marble bust before the beginning of the trial. Fortunately, the completed bust (now on display in the Red Room at Seymour Library) arrived from Johnson’s studio in Italy on the morning that the trial was set to begin and further lawsuits were avoided. Johnson’s steadfast demands for accurate compensation continued throughout her career, as she would not sell her sculptures if she felt that the price offered did not reflect the value of her work.
--Zuri
Burton, Shirley. Adelaide Johnson : to Make Immortal Their Adventurous Will. Macomb, Ill: Western Illinois University, 1986.
