The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-06-04

electric life and power To look at her
she seems spirit with just enough flesh
ly embodiment to hold her down and
keep her working. Mrs. Stanton and
Miss Anthony were the beloved friends
of the sculptor. At her wedding she
stood between their two busts. They
were her bridesmaids, she Iaughingly
said.
The quality distinguishing Adelaide
JohnsOns portrait busts is the soul in
depreciation in them. The artist sees
what is best in her subject. though it
be hidden from the ordinary ken, and
expresses it in the sculptured face.
She has made a notable bust of Cen
eral John A. Logan, although she may
he said to be, par excellence, the sculp-
tor of women. Famous ladies have
given her sittings, among them May
Wright Sewall, Lillian Whiting and Hell
en- Gardener. In her studio in New York
Mrs. Johnson has a remarkable marble
medallion portrait of Susan B. An
thony. 1t is a perfect character sketch
of the great woman champion.
Mrs. Johnson's studio itself has been
called the white nest" It's furnishings
are largely white. The marbles and
even the restful couch in the corner are
covered with snow white drapery. At
home Mrs. Johnson is ever clad in del
icate and dainty white, in a fashion of
robe she herself evolved-fiowing. easy,
classic, yet likewise convenient for
work. In the studios of Europe, espe-
cially in Italy, the sculptor artist man
or woman, is always dressed in white
from head to foot. 1t is suitable for
working in white clay, but it is also
beautiful and aesthetically fitting to
the plastic art.
This woman who is able to see
through the flesh mask and reproduce
the best expression of the soul within
her subject has had a remarkable career.
She was born on farm in Illinois. 1t
is recorded that when she was two
hours old she looked about her know
ingly and smiled visibIy. actually and
Enthusiastically, as though, being born,
she had already resolved to make the
best of a bad situation and take hu-
morous view of it. Seeing the smile,
her father said, This child is born to
wisdom"
Yet it was many weary year be-
fore Adelaide Johnson learned TO take
the humorous view of things. She was
a thin. dark nervous little creature,
solemn, intense and tragic, precocious
beyond description. Whatever was to
be done by woman's fingers upon a
farm this child wrought at. At the age
of ten she did the sewing for her whole
| family. Her capacity for work was
marvellous, and this power is hers still
in the white studio in New York. But
while she wrought with her hands at
the country tasks there was in her
| mind the vision of a life far different,
a time when the hands that MIXED
cows and made soap and cooked for
farm men should build into visible
shape the rare brain pictures which
hoated always before her.
When she was sixteen she went to
I 7 a.
drawing, modelling and wood carving.
once when she was seventeen the gift
ed girl, lonely. poor, filed with a fire
that consumed her day by day, found
herself apparently at the end of her
rope. She was in st. Louis. without
funds or friends who could help her.
She might return to the farm and give
up everything that made life worth
living. but all her soul rebelled at that.