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Found Remnants / Sculptural Decorations

PPIE Maquettes
Four “maquette like” statuettes of sculptures which formed part of the sculptural decoration of the PPIE are part of the Oakland Museum of California’s PPIE collection on display in their History Department’s permanent exhibit. These consist of the Star Maiden by A. Sterling Calder, John Flanagan’s, The Prophet, a Sea Sprite of Leo Lentilli’s, and Arthur Putnam’s Mermaid.

While these figures are “maquette like”, it can’t be asserted with certainty that they were actually employed to “point up” to full-scale the sculptures they represent because several statuettes at the same scale and of similar material exist elsewhere. There are several Star Maidens, and at least one other copy of both the Sea Sprite and Mermaid are known to exist in private collections.

Leo Lentilli’s Sea Sprite poised on one foot and shooting a bow at an unseen target, suffered one of the few indignities to befall any of the Exposition sculptures. Two of these figures stood on columns which flanked the Tower of Ages in the Court of Abundance. The original plans for the Fountain of Earth which stood at the foot of this tower included a semi-circular cascade of water whose origin at the center of the tower was to be more than 25 feet off the ground. The water was to flow down either side of this arched causeway into the Fountain of Earth’s basin. The columns supporting the Sea Sprites would have been in close enough proximity to these falling waters to suggest that they were shooting their arrows at imaginary fish in the waterfall. Time and money constraints forced the Department of Works to cancel the construction of the cascade, and Lentilli’s sculptures were left to aim at nothing in particular other than the occasional passerby.

Dennis Clark of Carmel, CA has a five foot long version of one of the two water nymphs riding on the backs of porpoise which A. Sterling Calder designed for the outer set of sculptures in the pool of his Fountain of Energy. Dennis’ sculpture has the nymph lying face down on the back of the porpoise with her legs extending beyond the porpoise’s raised tail.

Thanks to Amy Klask, Photo Archivist at the Oakland Museum of California’s History Department, for her assistance.

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