Nearly 72 years after Arch Garner's Astronomers Monument was commissioned for Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, his casting of the face of Copernicus has been restored. Authentic reproductions are now available. The original from which these come is a plaster casting made by Arch of the face of his figure of Copernicus.
A Short History of Arch Garner's Copernicus
Commissioned by the Treasury Department's Public Works of Art Project, Arch's design was chosen by the regional committee, and the Monument was completed in November of 1934. Each of the sculptors on the project made one of the six figures of astronomers. When the monument was completed, cast in the white concrete known as 'poured stone' to the sculptors of the day, the sculptors made plaster castings of the astromomer's faces from the master molds. These were shown at Jake Zeitlin's bookstore and gallery on Sixth Street in downtown LA.
Arch gave his Copernicus a faux bronze finish: dark green paint spattered with rottenstone while still wet, then buffed to give it the look of aged bronze. This was probably a technique learned making statues for movie sets, as he was doing at the time for MGM's 'The Painted Veil.' It was shown in Zeitlin's gallery in 1934 or early ‘35, and again in 1940.
It passed the years in various locations around California, including the home of his parents in Rio Del Mar, and at some point after that, in the studios of Arch's good friend and fellow sculptor Gordon Newell. They had met on the Astronomers Monument project and remained close friends for the rest of their lives.
Gordon kept it all his life, and it is remarkable that it survived so many moves and the destruction of two of Gordon's studios by fire. In 1992 I visited Gordon at his home in the Carmel Highlands. He showed me the piece, the first time that I had seen it since the 1950s at my grandparents' house. He had had a mold made of it for bronze casting, intending to have a casting made for himself, and one for me. We discussed the project over the next several years, but never brought it to realization. It went with him when he moved to Darwin, and remained there until after his death in 1998.
In 2001 I made a trip to Darwin to visit with Gordon's son Hal, to see the memorial he was building for his father, and to see some photographs of Gordon's early works. I asked him about the Arch's Copernicus. We looked for it among Gordon's things, and there it was. Except for some minor damage to the painted surface, it was in perfect condition. Hal insisted that I should have it as it was made by my father, and I of course was delighted to have it.
Since I am an artist and craftsman, I am hand-crafting these reproductions myself. I am using like materials to the originals, and methods learned from my father. I have taken great care to maintain the look and feel of the originals. Because they are hand made, each numbered reproduction is unique, and comes with certification of its authenticity and its history. The editions are limited to five hundred each of two versions: one in white concrete (pictured on the left) to give the look of the monument; the other in faux bronze(pictured on the right) to give the look of Arch's original casting.
The reproductions in white concrete have a mounting eye-bolt on the back for hanging (it weighs about forty pounds), a base-mount such as in the photo on the right is available on request. The faux bronze reproductions are mounted on a natural wood base.
Please contact me for information, prices, and delivery arrangements: jgarner@words-and-art.com, or call 360-734-3436.