Nellie Walker

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, Ultimately, because of her diminutive size and her work, she became known as "the lady who lived on ladders."

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 Chief Keokuk, (1913), Keokuk, Iowa, Senator Isaac Stephenson, (1921), Marinette, Wisconsin Memorial to Soldiers of the War of 1812, (1929), Springfield, Illinois Suffrage Memorial Panel, (1934), Iowa State Capitol, Des Moines, Iowa Lincoln Trail State Memorial, (1937), near Lawrenceville, Illinois Haym Salomon figure for the Heald Square Monument, (1941), Chicago, Illinois

Architectural sculpture figures of Friendship and Character, (1929) Michigan League Building, Ann Arbor, Michigan Monumental figures of Moses and Socrates for the courthouse in Jackson, Mississippi Panels, Iowa State University Library, Ames, Iowa Royal Neighbors Building, (1927) Rock Island, Illinois

Cemetery works

Winfield Scott Stratton, (1905), Colorado Springs, Colorado Lillian Watson, (1909), Chicago, Illinois Delos Diggins, (1909), Cadillac, Michigan Johannes Decker, (1910), Battle Creek, Michigan Fred and Carrie Diggins, (1916), Cadillac, Michigan W.W. Mitchell, (1916), Cadillac, Michigan Helen McMullen, (1919), Minneapolis, Minnesota Charles W. Shippey, (1922), Chicago, Illinois Myron L. Learned, (1928), Omaha, Nebraska Milton T. Barlow, (1930), Omaha, Nebraska Carl Gray, (1940), Baltimore, Maryland Butterfield Monument, (ca. 1920), Grand Rapids, Michigan