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Found Remnants / Sculptural Decorations

Introduction
Neither before nor since have so many original works of art been employed as architectural decoration for a World Exposition. Estimates of the number of decorative materials produced for this purpose ranges from a low of 850 pieces to a high of 1500. Whatever the actual figure, the number was sufficient to warrant erecting a factory for manufacturing the statuary and architectural details directly on the grounds of the PPIE. Employing several hundred skilled workmen, 78 individual designs — the work of some 60 sculptors and architects — were crafted by laying a plaster impregnated jute cloth over a wooden armature. Where multiples were required, molds were taken from the first full-scale piece. These were used to “lay-up” reproductions in the requisite numbers.
While nearly all of the mural decorations were salvaged, the same consideration was not extended to the statuary. Of the many hundreds of pieces which once decorated the buildings and grounds of the PPIE, only the head of Adam and the complete figure of Eve from The Genius of Creation, an extensively restored version of End of the Trail, and a few of the winged figures from the rotunda of the Palace of Fine Arts are all that remain.

Examples of a few other pieces of PPIE sculptural decoration exist, but in other forms. A number of maquettes — small scale originals employed to enlarge a sculpture to its final scale — have survived in various collections, and at least four bronze reproductions — cast at the same scale as seen at the Exposition — are known to exist. In addition, several works have been produced in plaster, bronze or marble at various reduced sizes. Some of these are even smaller than the original maquettes. Altogether, these may represent no more than two dozen pieces. There might have been a significantly greater number had it not been for a finding by the City Attorney of San Francisco in 1934.

A 1933 letter from the War Memorial Board of Trustees, noted that they owned approximately 200 cases of plaster models “from which the statues exhibited at the Exposition were copied”(i.e. maquettes), and that these crates were being stored in the cellar of Exposition Auditorium.

In 1934, the Board of Trustees turned over this entire lot of models to the Park Commission, but not before offering to give them to the Board of Education, Board of State Harbor Commissioners, San Francisco Public Library and the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum without finding any takers. The letter of transfer stipulated that the Park Commission would not be held responsible for the “breakage or theft of any model”, and that they could dispose of any models that were found to be of “no practical value”. This proviso followed a 1934 finding by the City Attorney which gave the Board of Trustees permission to, “dispose of any broken items from the Exposition”. There is no record of what happened to these 200 crates of “original models” after their transfer to the Park Commission, but it is very likely they were eventually found to be “broken” and simply discarded. While they may have manifested “no practical value” in 1934, a maquette size plaster Star Maiden by A. Sterling Calder recently sold for an amount in excess of $30,000. Such were the “worthless” materials which lay within those long lost 200 crates.

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