Nita K. Sunderland
EAST PEORIA -- Nita K. Sunderland, 92, American sculptor, died Friday, July 17, 2020, at Generations at Riverview in East Peoria.
Nita was born November 9, 1927, in Newton, Illinois, to parents Sarah (Taylor) Sunderland and Glenn H. Sunderland. She grew up in Newton, and continued her education in Norton, Mass, where she graduated from House in the Pines junior college in 1947. There she developed impressive equestrian skills and became captain of the school's Riding Club. She briefly taught physical education at Lancaster Country Day School in Lancaster, PA, before resuming her education. She studied art at Duke University before transferring to Bradley University, where she received her BFA in 1952. Nita taught art at the University of Michoacan, Mexico, from 1953 to 1954. She received her Master's degree in ceramics from Bradley University in 1955 and joined the Bradley faculty a year later. As one of the first woman college sculpture instructors in the United States, Nita was constantly breaking the glass ceiling throughout her career. She taught sculpture, drawing, and 3-D design at Bradley until she retired as a Professor Emeritus in 1988.
Nita is known for her mostly large-scale works of sculpture carved from Indiana limestone or cast in bronze. Her artwork often expressed themes of masked emotions as well as historical and contemporary restrictions on women's freedom and equality. Many of her works are in private collections in the Peoria and Chicago areas, and many grace public spaces such as the Peoria Civic Center, Peoria Methodist Medical Center, Illinois State University, Peoria Riverview Museum, Bradley University, and former Chicago locations including the Federal Plaza and Millenium Park.
Nita's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and has been featured in local exhibitions, including Lakeview Museum in 1964 and 1995 as well as a retrospective at Riverview Museum in 2016.
In 1986 Nita formed a sculpture restoration business with family and colleagues and performed invaluable restoration work on many public monuments in central Illinois and Indiana, including the Civil War Memorial in downtown Peoria. Nita also devoted many volunteer hours helping to restore grave markers at Peoria's historic Springdale Cemetery, and she served on the board of Tri-County WomenStrength in Peoria (now the Center for Prevention of Abuse) from 1989 to 1995.
Nita will be remembered for her passionate devotion to her art, her dedication to her students, her service to her community, her love of family, and her compassion for all living creatures, especially the many Airedale dogs she rescued as pets through the years.
Nita is survived by her dearest friend and longtime colleague Beth Linn, her nephews John Sunderland (Libby Hillis) of Mazama, Washington, and Bill Sunderland (Krista) of Champaign, Illinois, as well as great-nieces Gloria Sunderland and Sara Sunderland of Champaign. She was preceded in death by her parents and her brother, Glenn W. Sunderland.
A memorial service for Nita will be announced at a future date.
In lieu of flowers, charitable contributions may be made to Bradley University Department of Art, to the Center for Prevention of Abuse, and Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
Friends and family may sign the online guestbook or send private condolences by logging onto www.wrightandsalmon.com.

To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.

Published by Peoria Journal Star from Jul. 17 to Jul. 19, 2020.

Memories and Condolences
for Nita Sunderland

Sponsored by Wright & Salmon Mortuary - Peoria.

3 Entries

Gary Zuercher

August 26, 2020

I attended Bradley University School of Fine Art from 1964 to 1967 and was fortunate to have Nita Sunderland as an instructor in Sculpture and Life Drawing. I often helped her in the sculpture studio, sweeping up the limestone and marble dust and carrying supplies.

She was unlike any other woman I had ever met and her positive influence on me has lasted my entire life.

She could be gruff, but never mean. She could be strong, but not overbearing. She could be sympathetic, but when my Carrera marble cracked in a bad way, she just said, "I will order you another marble. Don't crack that one".

The marble finishing was a difficult process that involved rubbing the sculpture with finishing stones under running water. I did not realize how long this process would take and I turned in a nice piece, but not completely finished. Nita looked at my 4-month effort and told me I would get a "B". As I walked away, she said, " If you had finished it, I would have given you an "A".

Nita also taught Life Drawing, which was a required subject that was taken every semester. Nita declared that my drawing style was too tight and I needed to loosen up. After a glass of wine, I found that she was right and my drawing improved.

Life Drawing class was held in an upstairs room that was across the street from Fraternity row and local homes. One evening while we were drawing a nude model, the police burst in into the room and asked what was going on. Apparently an elderly woman who lived across the street had seen the nude model and called the police. Nita, outraged that her class had been interrupted, immediately went into action and within a minute or so, the police began retreating to the door, thoroughly cowed.

Nita had ordered a new air compressor for our pneumatic tools and it arrived one day when I was working in the sculpture studio. It was a large heavy floor unit and needed to be moved and placed along one wall of the studio. As Nita grabbed a large crowbar, I asked her if she needed some help. Nita, eyes flashing, just said no and proceed to lever the compressor into place. I never again asked her if she needed help.

Rest in peace, Professor Sunderland. You will be missed, but your wonderful sculptures carry on your legacy.

Gary Zuercher

John Sunderland

July 22, 2020

Nita was my aunt, and we were close throughout my life, though we lived some distance away for most of it. For my brother and I as young boys from a small farm town, she was our window on a wider world. When I was 9, she went on sabbatical to Florence, Italy to study with master marble carvers. My folks showed me where that was on the globe in our house, and I read about Florence’s history to try to understand what her time there was all about. She took me through MOMA in NYC when I was in high school. She let us run amok in her studio, even when we were very young, always showing us how to do things safely. She taught me to weld in the welding booth in her studio when I was 12. She’d explain to us how she was going to set a piece of sculpture, and I’d marvel at how she would figure out all of the dynamics of the situation and make it go smoothly. I just always assumed there wasn’t anything she couldn’t figure out how to do.

In later years, I loved the stories she would tell at dinner when I’d be back visiting from the northwest. About the time my Dad showed up with his Navy buddies at House of the Pines during the war to find Nita “Roman riding” astride two horses, or about the summer she worked at Bessler Welding so that she could pay her foundry bills for her sculpture castings, or the time she was spirited out of Mexico when the political situation got tense in Morelia.

She had a long and interesting life, though not an easy one to be sure, and I’ll miss her now that she’s gone.

Bill Aspell

July 21, 2020

Nita was my teacher, mentor, role model, and hero for reasons too many to elaborate on an online forum. Condolences to her family and friends. She was a great one.

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