Geneva Mercer

Geneva Mercer was an American artist from Alabama. Best known as a sculptor, she was also an accomplished painter in her later years. Although most of her early work with Italian sculptor Giuseppe Moretti was done under his name, her best known individual works include Joyous Boy, Pied Piper, the Flimp Fountain, and several Julia Tutwiler sculptures located at the Alabama Department of Archives and History, University of Alabama, and University of Montevallo. She was posthumously inducted into the Alabama Womens Hall of Fame in 1989.

Geneva Mercer was born in the small community of Jefferson in Marengo County on January 27, 1889. Her parents were Thomas Barton Mercer and Emma Elizabeth Berry. She attended the local village school, where she modeled her first sculpture, a crude red clay bust, at the age of nine. Her teacher recognized that she had a natural talent and obtained modeling wax and a book on sculpting for her. She completed high school in 1904 and went on to attend the State Normal School at Livingston, now known as the University of West Alabama. While there, her talents interested the schools president, Julia Tutwiler. Tutwiler secured an art teacher from Chicago to teach at the college and give instruction in modeling to Mercer.

Source: Wikipedia