Bird Girl
Encyclopedia
Bird Girl is a sculpture made in 1936 by Sylvia Shaw Judson
in Lake Forest, Illinois
. It achieved fame when it was featured on the cover of the 1994 novel
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
. It was sculpted at Ragdale
, the summer home of her family.
and stands 50 inches tall. She is the image of a young girl wearing a simple dress and a sad or contemplative expression, with her head tilted to the left. She stands straight, her elbows propped against her waist as she holds up two bowls out from her sides. The bowls are often described by viewers as "bird feeder
s".
The sculpture was commissioned as a garden sculpture for a family in Massachusetts
. A slight, 8-year-old model
named Lorraine Greenman (now Lorraine Ganz) posed for the piece.
Only four statues were made from the original plaster cast
. The first went to the Massachusetts garden. The second was sent to Washington, D.C.
, and is now located in Reading, Pennsylvania
. The third was purchased by a family in Lake Forest and has never relocated. The fourth and most famous statue was bought by a family in Savannah, Georgia
, who named it Little Wendy and set it up at her family's plot in Bonaventure Cemetery
in Savannah, Georgia
. Judson donated the original plaster model to the Crow Island School in Winnetka
, Illinois
.
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 the suggestion of Berendt, 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.
The cover image was an immediate hit, and Berendt called it "one of the strongest book covers I've ever seen." Published in 1994, the book became a 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 to the Telfair Museum of Art
in Savannah for public display.
In 1995, Judson's daughter Alice Judson Hayes (aka Alice Ryerson Hayes) had a fifth bronze statue created from a mold. That statue was given to Ragdale
, an artists' retreat in Lake Forest. 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 a museum in Savannah. 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, author Francie Shaw.
Warner Bros.
produced a film adaptation of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil in 1997, directed by Clint Eastwood
. 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.
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 movie's 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 Bros. and Leigh then settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.
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 locations as the Philadelphia Museum of Art
, the Whitney Museum of American Art
in New York
, the White House
, and the Massachusetts State House
. Jack Leigh died of colon cancer on May 19, 2004, and is buried in Bonaventure Cemetery, where he took his most famous photograph.
Sylvia Shaw Judson
Sylvia Shaw Judson , also known as Sylvia Shaw Haskins, was an American sculptor and teacher.-Early life and education:Shaw was born in 1897 in Lake Forest, Illinois, near Chicago, the daughter of prominent Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw. She attended the Westover School in Connecticut. In...
in Lake Forest, Illinois
Lake Forest, Illinois
Lake Forest is an affluent city located in Lake County, Illinois, United States. The city is south of Waukegan along the shore of Lake Michigan, and is a part of the Chicago metropolitan area and the North Shore. Lake Forest was founded around Lake Forest College and was laid out as a town in...
. It achieved fame when it was featured on the cover of the 1994 novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a non-fiction work by John Berendt. Published in 1994, the book was Berendt's first, and became a The New York Times bestseller for 216 weeks following its debut....
. It was sculpted at Ragdale
Ragdale
Ragdale is the summer retreat of Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw, located in Lake Forest, Illinois. It is also the home of the Ragdale Foundation...
, the summer home of her family.
Details
Bird Girl is cast in bronzeBronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
and stands 50 inches tall. She is the image of a young girl wearing a simple dress and a sad or contemplative expression, with her head tilted to the left. She stands straight, her elbows propped against her waist as she holds up two bowls out from her sides. The bowls are often described by viewers as "bird feeder
Bird feeder
A birdfeeder, bird feeder, bird table, or tray feeder are devices placed outdoors to supply bird food to birds...
s".
The sculpture was commissioned as a garden sculpture for a family in Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
. A slight, 8-year-old model
Model (person)
A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....
named Lorraine Greenman (now Lorraine Ganz) posed for the piece.
Only four statues were made from the original plaster cast
Casting
In metalworking, casting involves pouring liquid metal into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowing it to cool and solidify. The solidified part is also known as a casting, which is ejected or broken out of the mold to complete the process...
. The first went to the Massachusetts garden. The second was sent to Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, and is now located in Reading, Pennsylvania
Reading, Pennsylvania
Reading is a city in southeastern Pennsylvania, USA, and seat of Berks County. Reading is the principal city of the Greater Reading Area and had a population of 88,082 as of the 2010 census, making it the fifth most populated city in the state after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown and Erie,...
. The third was purchased by a family in Lake Forest and has never relocated. The fourth and most famous statue was bought by a family in Savannah, Georgia
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...
, who named it Little Wendy and set it up at her family's plot in Bonaventure Cemetery
Bonaventure Cemetery
Bonaventure Cemetery is a public cemetery located on a scenic bluff of the Wilmington River, east of Savannah, Georgia. The cemetery became famous when it was featured in the 1994 novel Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt, and in the movie, directed by Clint Eastwood, based on...
in Savannah, Georgia
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...
. Judson donated the original plaster model to the Crow Island School in Winnetka
Winnetka
Winnetka may refer to:One of the following places in the United States:* Winnetka, Los Angeles* Winnetka, Illinois* Winnetka Heights, Dallas, TexasOr to the following educational experiment:* The Winnetka Plan...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
.
The Bonaventure Cemetery
Bonaventure Cemetery
Bonaventure Cemetery is a public cemetery located on a scenic bluff of the Wilmington River, east of Savannah, Georgia. The cemetery became famous when it was featured in the 1994 novel Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt, and in the movie, directed by Clint Eastwood, based on...
statue sat virtually unnoticed until 1993, when Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
hired Savannah photographer Jack Leigh
Jack Leigh
John David "Jack" Leigh II , a native of Savannah, Georgia and a graduate of The Savannah Country Day School and the University of Georgia, was a photographer and author, best known for the cover photograph on the novel Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil...
to shoot an image for the cover of John Berendt
John Berendt
John Berendt is an American author, known for writing the best-selling non-fiction book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which was a finalist for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction....
's new book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. At the suggestion of Berendt, 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
Darkroom
A darkroom is a room that can be made completely dark to allow the processing of light sensitive photographic materials, including photographic film and photographic paper. Darkrooms have been created and used since the inception of photography in the early 19th century...
adjusting the lighting, giving the photo a moonlit feel and accentuating the halo around the statue's head.
The cover image was an immediate hit, and Berendt called it "one of the strongest book covers I've ever seen." Published in 1994, the book became a bestseller
Bestseller
A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...
, 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
Cemetery
A cemetery is a place in which dead bodies and cremated remains are buried. The term "cemetery" implies that the land is specifically designated as a burying ground. Cemeteries in the Western world are where the final ceremonies of death are observed...
and later lent to the Telfair Museum of Art
Telfair Museum of Art
The Telfair Museum of Art, located in the historic district of Savannah, Georgia, is the South’s first public art museum. Founded through the bequest of Mary Telfair , a prominent local citizen, the museum opened in 1886 in the Telfair family’s renovated Regency-style mansion, known as the Telfair...
in Savannah for public display.
In 1995, Judson's daughter Alice Judson Hayes (aka Alice Ryerson Hayes) had a fifth bronze statue created from a mold. That statue was given to Ragdale
Ragdale
Ragdale is the summer retreat of Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw, located in Lake Forest, Illinois. It is also the home of the Ragdale Foundation...
, an artists' retreat in Lake Forest. Later, an authorized fiberglass
Fiberglass
Glass fiber is a material consisting of numerous extremely fine fibers of glass.Glassmakers throughout history have experimented with glass fibers, but mass manufacture of glass fiber was only made possible with the invention of finer machine tooling...
replica was made from the original plaster model for use by Macy's
Macy's
Macy's is a U.S. chain of mid-to-high range department stores. In addition to its flagship Herald Square location in New York City, the company operates over 800 stores in the United States...
in their display windows; it was later moved to a museum in Savannah. 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, author Francie Shaw.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
produced a film adaptation of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil in 1997, directed by Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...
. 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.
Leigh sued Warner Bros. in November 1997 for copyright infringement
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
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 movie's 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 Bros. and Leigh then settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.
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 locations as the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is among the largest art museums in the United States. It is located at the west end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. The Museum was established in 1876 in conjunction with the Centennial Exposition of the same year...
, the Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
, and the Massachusetts State House
Massachusetts State House
The Massachusetts State House, also known as the Massachusetts Statehouse or the "New" State House, is the state capitol and house of government of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is located in Boston in the neighborhood Beacon Hill...
. Jack Leigh died of colon cancer on May 19, 2004, and is buried in Bonaventure Cemetery, where he took his most famous photograph.
External links
- Letter by Alice Hayes regarding Bird Girl replicas
- 4 different Bird Girl Bird Girl replicas
- Message board posts with info about Jack Leigh, including details about the Bird Girl photo, his photographic technique, and his lawsuit against Warner Bros.
- Good and Evil image maker dies
- Website for The Jack Leigh Gallery