ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times

DATE: Friday, December 29, 1995              TAG: 9512290057
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-1  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: Associated Press 

ASHE STATUE REDONE FOR CRITICS

THE TENNIS GREAT'S LIKENESS wasn't good enough for a committee because it was considered too frail. The revamped work is larger than the original.

The Arthur Ashe statue that will adorn the city's historic Monument Avenue will be brawnier and more muscular than the plaster model that some city residents have criticized.

Artist Paul DiPasquale showed off the wax cast of the modified Ashe statue Wednesday to a three-member committee of the Richmond Commission of Architectural Review in Waynesboro. Committee members pronounced the statue much improved and said they would be back Sunday to take a look at changes yet to be made.

All the last-minute changes will have to be done by Jan. 15, when DiPasquale goes to Rome to be a visiting artist at the American Academy there.

The commission last week gave its conditional approval to the Ashe monument, which will be erected at the intersection of Monument Avenue and Roseneath Road. The condition was that the three-member committee visit the Waynesboro foundry where the pieces were being cast to discuss modifications.

The criticism of the statue is the latest controversy surrounding the memorial to the tennis great who died of AIDS in 1993. Last summer, some people objected to placing the statue on Monument Avenue, where all the other statues are of Confederate heroes of the Civil War.

The committee members, and other city residents, have said the original Ashe statue was awkward and lacked a connection with the figures of four children that will surround it as part of the finished monument.

``There seems to be some modification in areas we were going to criticize,'' committee member Robert Mills said.

The statue is thicker in the chest and shoulders than was an earlier plaster model. Also, the sweat suit the Ashe figure is wearing is fuller.

LENGTH: Short :   47 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  AP. Artist Paul DiPasquale (center) showed off the wax 
          cast of the Arthur Ashe statue to three architectural commission 
          members. color.