THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 29, 1995 TAG: 9512290592
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
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 to a three-member committee of the Richmond Commission of Architectural Review in Waynesboro on Wednesday.
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.
``There seems to be some modification in areas we were going to criticize,'' committee member Robert Mills said after meeting with DiPasquale.
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.
DiPasquale has lowered both arms and moved them forward so the statue looks warmer and softer.
The right arm is still holding books, but it is now bent more at the elbow. The left arm, which is holding a tennis racket, also is bent more and closer to the body.
Committee members said they were concerned that the wax cast still shows Ashe looking straight ahead rather than at the children.
DiPasquale said earlier models of the statue had the head turned slightly downward and toward one of the children. He said he would move the head back to that pose.
DiPasquale has said the family wanted Ashe to be shown as he was toward the end of his life, when he weighed about 120 pounds.
That is the figure DiPasquale depicted in his statue, but he has since added more musculature. He told the committee that he would look at adding even more bulk, but that it might not work out.
DiPasquale also said that he wanted to work with the committee and harbored no ill will toward critics of his art. ILLUSTRATION: Photos
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Some Richmond residents criticized the Arthur Ashe statue, shown
left in its original form, which depicted the athlete as he appeared
toward the end of his life when he weighed about 120 pounds. The
modified statue, right, is thicker in the chest and shoulders, and
the sweat suit the Ashe image is wearing is fuller. The statue will
go up at Monument Avenue and Roseneath Road.
by CNB