Statue of Harrison Gray Otis explained

Statue of Harrison Gray Otis
Italic Title:no
Artist:Paul Troubetzkoy
Completion Date:1920
Medium:Bronze
Metric Unit:cm
Imperial Unit:in
City:Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Mapframe:yes
Mapframe-Zoom:13

A statue of Harrison Gray Otis (sometimes called General Harrison Gray Otis)[1] is installed in Los Angeles' MacArthur Park, in the U.S. state of California.[2] [3] The bronze statue was originally part of a sculptural group (sometimes called the "Otis Group")[4] that originally included a newsboy and a soldier.[5] [6] The artist, Paul Troubetzkoy, won a design competition in 1918 and the final product was installed in 1920. The soldier has been absent for decades, the newsboy was stolen for its scrap metal value in March 2024. The theft was discovered by Anne-Lise Desmas, an art historian and Getty Museum curator who brought a colleague from the Louvre to the park to see Troubetzkoy's work and found the newsboy absent. Investigators believe that the metal thieves posed as city maintenance workers to avoid questions about what they were doing with the cast-bronze figure.

The model for the newsboy was Andrew Azzoni, whose father worked as a waiter at a restaurant patronized by Troubetzkoy.

A scene from the Buster Keaton film Hard Luck was shot at the statue in 1921, at which time all three figures were still present.[7]

The statue, standing in close proximity to Wilshire Boulevard, has been the victim of several car crashes.

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: General Harrison Gray Otis, (sculpture). . 2022-09-18 . Smithsonian Institution.
  2. Web site: 2022-02-03 . General Harrison Gray Otis Statue . 2022-09-18 . Los Angeles Explorers Guild . en . 2022-09-19 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220919131509/https://losangelesexplorersguild.com/2022/02/03/general-harrison-gray-otis-statue/ . live .
  3. News: Lopez . Robert J. . 2009-05-11 . CALIFORNIA BRIEFING / LOS ANGELES . 2022-09-18 . . en-US . 2022-09-19 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220919131511/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-may-11-me-briefs11.s1-story.html . live .
  4. Web site: Paul Troubetskoy (or Troubetzkoy), Otis Group, Macarthur Park, Los Angeles . 2022-09-18 . Public Art in LA . 2016-03-06 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160306153535/http://www.publicartinla.com/sculptures/MacArthur_Park/otis1.html . live .
  5. News: Curwen . Thomas . 12 April 2024 . Copper thieves strike again, mutilating a 100-year-old monument in MacArthur Park . . April 12, 2024 . April 12, 2024 . https://web.archive.org/web/20240412105542/https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-12/copper-thieves-strike-again-mutilating-a-100-year-old-monument-in-macarthur-park . live .
  6. Web site: Waldie . D. J. . 2016-03-22 . The Newsboy, the General, and the Lost Soldier of MacArthur Park . 2022-09-18 . KCET . en . 2021-11-11 . https://web.archive.org/web/20211111113626/https://www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/the-newsboy-the-general-and-the-lost-soldier-of-macarthur-park . live .
  7. Book: Bengtson . John . Silent echoes: discovering early Hollywood through the films of Buster Keaton . Brownlow . Kevin . 2000 . Santa Monica Press . 978-1-891661-06-8 . Santa Monica, Calif. . 40 . en-us.

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