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Found Remnants / Sculptural Decorations

Star Maidens
© 2001 Steve Sanders, Remnants of a Dream
A. Sterling Calder, Acting Chief of Sculpture for the PPIE and father of Alexander Calder, the modernist sculptor who invented the “mobile”, contributed an astounding number of works to the Exposition’s architectural decorations. 95 of his Star Maidens stood along the attic balustrade encircling the Court of the Universe and its forecourt. All the figures comprising the sculptural elements of the Fountain of Energy which stood at the center of the South Gardens were his designs, and he collaborated with fellow sculptors, Leo Lentilli and Frederick G.R. Roth, to produce two massive figurative assemblages, The Peoples of the East, and The Peoples of the West. These reared nearly fifty feet into the air atop the massive arches which penetrated the east and west walls of the Court of the Universe.

Perched on their spheres, the Star Maidens stood nearly ten feet tall and carried Novagems at the ends of each of the rays of their diadems. Lights hidden on the roofs of the exhibition halls played on the figures after dark giving the impression that stars had fallen from the sky to adorn their headresses.

Though there were nearly one hundred of these figures produced for use in the Exposition, none of the originals appear to have survived. There are several half life-sized versions in public and private collections in both plaster and bronze, and one exquisite bronze in the scale used for the Exposition stands in the Citicorp Atrium at 1 Sansome Street, in downtown San Francisco.

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