What does a special effects pioneer, father of motion pictures and inventor of television all have to do with Lucasfilm’s Letterman Digital Art Center in San Francisco? These historical figures that brought revolutionary changes to the arts, entertainment and communication in the twentieth century are commemorated as life-sized bronze sculptures, adorning the beautiful campus of LDAC at the Presidio. Since the $350 million, 865,000 square foot film production facility sitting on 23-acres of federal park land first opened in 2005, sculptor Lawrence Noble has been busy creating monumental works of art for George Lucas.
The statue of Willis O’Brien, the stop-motion special effects innovator who gave life to King Kong in 1933 was installed in building “A” lobby just in time for the inauguration of LDAC. About two years later, statue of Eadweard Muybridge was erected outside the public park area with a picturesque vista of Palace of Fine Arts. The most recent installation was the statue of Philo Farnsworth, also located outside not far from where Muybridge is standing. Farnsworth was set in place this past March, but George asked Larry to come up with a television design to become part of the statue. Larry chose a 1948 Bush, model #12 television set from the U.K. as the basis for his design. The Bush T.V. had a unique Art Deco look that perfectly complimented the sculpture of this modern inventor.
Artworks Foundry owner Dale Smith, Larry and I arrived to LDAC last early Thursday morning to uninstall Farnsworth from its stone base and reattach it with the newly cast television on to a bronze base. This might sound pretty straight forward, but the process was extremely difficult and it took two 10 hour days to complete the job. Larry returned to LDAC early Saturday morning to take some pictures and you can see few of them posted above. I'm sure when some of the Lucasfilm employees saw the newly reinstalled Farnsworth statue on Monday, they were very impressed and even inspired!
Larry standing next to his Darth Vader bronze in building "B" lobby
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