Like the artist, this sculpture is bold, mysterious and experimental. Twice my height, I imagined Geraldine McCullough, 91, who died Dec. 15 in her sleep, must have wanted passersby to marvel at how small we are in the presence of great beauty.
I thought about this one Saturday morning after her internment as I walked around the mammoth piece, which proudly stands in the village hall courtyard at Madison and Lombard. I reflected on how many local African-Americans felt she deserved the highest possible tribute, as I viewed her towering Pathfinder, the copper and bronze sculpture once described by Wednesday Journal as showing “great spirituality and thought.” Geraldine gifted the Village of Oak Park with this massive, 13-foot-high masterpiece on Dec. 5, 1982.
I didn’t know Geraldine well. I met her a couple of times at her home studio during the ’90s when I was on the Oak Park Area Arts Council Board. Seven years ago-when I was researching a forthcoming book on the rich history of blacks and biracials in our villages-I asked Geraldine and her relatives to discuss their perspectives. Geraldine lived in both Oak Park and Maywood. She had relatives with roots in River Forest and elsewhere. It is interesting to note that Geraldine’s sister, Hazel Collymore, came from Canada.
Geraldine was philosophical, oft-poetic about her work.
“The universal timelessness of the art-object has established in me the idea that it has spiritual essence-an inner life of its own-that it has a subjective power that is all-encompassing,” she said in a prepared statement in July 2002. “As far as the future artistic life of Oak Park is concerned … I am witnessing a new generation of African-American artists who are extremely interested in every kind of artistic practice, be it visual, literary, etc.”
Born in Mason County, Ark., on Dec. 1, 1917, Geraldine was raised in Chicago and received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Art Institute of Chicago, where she majored in painting and art education. She is recognized in numerous publications, including Great Negroes: Past and Present by Russell Adams, Forever Free: Art by African-American Women by Arna Bontemps and A Guide to Chicago’s Public Sculpture by Ira J. Bach and Mary Lackritz Gray.
“Her works are general, symbolic and are concerned with the human experience,” said biographer Margaret Cunningham.
According to her obituary in the Journal, Geraldine went on to teach in the Chicago Public School system and served as chairman of the art department for 12 years at Rosary College (now Dominican University) in River Forest. She received an honorary doctorate from Dominican after she retired. Her work is exhibited at the Smithsonian Institute and many other prominent galleries and museums. She has been reviewed in the New York Times, Washington Post, Ebony, and Jet. Her sculpture of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. forms Freedom Corner in Springfield beside a sculpture of Abraham Lincoln.
As I conclude my walk around Pathfinder-a tall statue that mirrors Geraldine’s artistic vision-I’m reminded that, like this stellar work, she too was a titan.
Stan West, an Oak Parker for 16 years, is a former foreign correspondent for Pacific News Service. He is an author, educator, filmmaker and human rights activist. But his favorite job, he says, is being a parent.