Sculpted Life

Every state in the country has 2 statues in the U.S. Capitol. Nebraska has chosen to replace both of its statues. Littleton Alston will be the first African American to create a sculpture for Statuary Hall as he’s been chosen to create a bronze of world renown author Willa Cather. He grew up in extreme poverty in the Washington DC suburbs and escaped from his troubled neighborhood by visiting the U. S. Capitol and dreaming of being an artist one day. Single and poor, Alston’s mother worked behind the scenes to get him accepted into the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. As a young man, he came to Omaha on a residency and stayed to raise his family.