Nebraska Willa Cather sculpture unveiled in National Statuary Hall collection

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A sculpture of Willa Cather was unveiled in the National Statuary Hall collection Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

She is the first Pulitzer Prize winner in the collection, and the man who created the sculpture is also making history.

Littleton Alston has been surrounded by art his entire life and creating sculptures.

The Creighton University fine arts professor was tasked with creating a sculpture of Cather — a Nebraska icon.

"I competed against over 70 artists from around the country, and I didn't anticipate anything really. I went in with an open slate," Alston said.

Alston said he was honored to be selected, and creating it makes him the first African American artist to have a sculpture in the collection.

"I said are you sure and she said yes. So that's a historic moment for the state of Nebraska, for me personally, but also for the university," Alston said.

Cather is also be the 12th woman represented in the collection.

"It's wonderfully exciting, and it's an event we've been planning for, for several years now. So we're really just excited that Cather will be commemorated in this way in our nation's capital," Ashley Olson, executive director of the National Willa Cather Center, said.

At the age of nine, Cather moved to Red Cloud, Nebraska. She used her upbringing and experiences there to write novels.

"There weren't a lot of narratives about the Great Plains and the settlement experience at the time she was publishing books like 'O Pioneers!' and 'My Ántonia,'" Olson said.

Olson said people can take away a lot from this moment — and witness history turn a page.

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