STATUARY RIVALS

Perched high above the Chicago tomb of Senator Stephen A. Douglas, Abraham Lincoln’s famed political rival, stands a larger-than-life statue. It was once as famous as any outdoor memorial in the North. Ironically, it was created by an artist who knew the “Little Giant” personally, benefited from his financial support, and even married into the extended Douglas family. The artist was once the Windy City’s most famous sculptor: Leonard Wells Volk. Yet some residents of modern Chicago believe his Douglas statue should no longer reign there.

As an 1876 photograph of Volk’s preliminary model reveals, the artist intended to portray Douglas, who died in June 1861, as a pugnacious orator—which indeed he was. The sculptor knew precisely how to pose his subject realistically, for he had seen the senator deliver many political speeches. The figure is unapologetically diminutive, but also coiled with aggression, conceding Douglas’ physical shortcomings while emphasizing his charismatic impact on audiences.

The result pleased nearly all of Douglas’ contemporary admirers and a number of period art critics, too. Yet the final bronze, installed at the Douglas Monument in 1878, has since been forgotten by most, while arousing controversy from the few who still notice it. Whether it has become a casualty of the subject’s reputational decline, the statue’s unfortunate above-the-trees placement, the neighborhood’s changing culture, or the artist’s limited talent remains open to debate. Certainly Volk never quite earned a national reputation. In his influential, critic Henry T. Tuckerman included a laudatory assessment of the Douglas Monument. But he referred to its creator as “Leo W. Volk.”