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In Focus – By CR Brown
“Sylvia Shaw Judson is the woman who sculpted the statue that was bought by the family who put it in the graveyard that attracted the photographer who snapped the picture that was put on the book that became a best seller.”
Those are the words taken from an Internet article that point to the unlikely chain of events leading to the statue’s sudden notoriety.
The story of “Savannah Girl” had its origin in 1936 when Judson, the daughter of an architect and writer, sculpted what was then referred to as “Bird Girl.” The statue was one of four commissioned sculptures that were originally cast in bronze. Two of those remained in the Lake Forest area of Chicago, one went to Massachusetts and the last ended up on the east coast. Lucy Boyd Trosdal of Savannah, Georgia managed to acquire the fourth piece, putting “Little Wendy” as she called it, at the family gravesite in Bonaventure Cemetery.
Fifty years passed before Jack Leigh photographed it in 1994 for the cover of the best selling novel ‘Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil’ by John Berendt
The book was made into a movie by the same name in 1997. The highly-acclaimed film was directed by Clint Eastwood and starred Kevin Spacey, John Cusack and Jude Law to name a few.
The “Savannah Girl” statue pictured above is a descendant of the original “Bird Girl” piece, but it has undergone a change in appearance to allow for casting in concrete. Since 1994, the statue has enjoyed a great deal of commercial success with widespread use in both garden and landscape settings.
“Sylvia Shaw Judson is the woman who sculpted the statue that was bought by the family who put it in the graveyard that attracted the photographer who snapped the picture that was put on the book that became a best seller.”
Those are the words taken from an Internet article that point to the unlikely chain of events leading to the statue’s sudden notoriety.
The story of “Savannah Girl” had its origin in 1936 when Judson, the daughter of an architect and writer, sculpted what was then referred to as “Bird Girl.” The statue was one of four commissioned sculptures that were originally cast in bronze. Two of those remained in the Lake Forest area of Chicago, one went to Massachusetts and the last ended up on the east coast. Lucy Boyd Trosdal of Savannah, Georgia managed to acquire the fourth piece, putting “Little Wendy” as she called it, at the family gravesite in Bonaventure Cemetery.
Fifty years passed before Jack Leigh photographed it in 1994 for the cover of the best selling novel ‘Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil’ by John Berendt
The book was made into a movie by the same name in 1997. The highly-acclaimed film was directed by Clint Eastwood and starred Kevin Spacey, John Cusack and Jude Law to name a few.
The “Savannah Girl” statue pictured above is a descendant of the original “Bird Girl” piece, but it has undergone a change in appearance to allow for casting in concrete. Since 1994, the statue has enjoyed a great deal of commercial success with widespread use in both garden and landscape settings.
This rendition of "Savannah Girl" resides somewhere in the community of Heath, Alabama.
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