ST. LOUIS PUBLIC SCULPTURE - SURVEILLANCE

 

Big Brother may actually be watching you. We in the United States have reason to worry about such things these days. Tony Tasset's Eye at Laumeier Sculpture Park  could have cameras embedded in it for all we know. Keep your head down.                    

ST. LOUIS PUBLIC SCULPTURE - MALCOLM MARTIN

 

One more by Harry Weber. Actually, this is just across the river in East St. Louis, Illinois. Malcolm Martin was a corporate lawyer in a big firm. My tiny firm was in the same building so I saw him around on occasion. He was successful, never married and wanted to do some good with his money. The land directly across the Mississippi from the Arch was vacant. Martin wanted to establish a viewing point for the river, Arch and downtown, preserved for the public. His bequest made it happen. It's a wonderful place.

This is an old picture. The object behind Martin is a one of many sculptured cakes marking the 250th anniversary of the founding of St. Louis.               

ST. LOUIS PUBLIC SCULPTURE - CHUCK BERRY

 

Chuck Berry is a native St. Louisan. In his later years he lived with family in a compound on the edge of the area. He frequently performed in a small space in the basement of locally famous Blueberry Hill, a bar and restaurant across the street from this statue. The performance venue was known as The Duck Room, after Berry's signature walk.

This is another work by Harry Weber. I knew him slightly since he asked to use my picture of another of his statues (see tomorrow) in a book about his stuff. He said he would send me a copy of the book. He didn't. Nobody ever does. (Talking about you, Museum  of Modern Art.) What Weber did do is get me into the private reception for Berry at Blueberry Hill, resulting in this picture - https://tinyurl.com/cdce9hhh .               

ST. LOUIS PUBLIC SCULPTURE - LEWIS AND CLARK

 

A sculpture by Harry Weber, whose work is all around here, called The Captains' Return. It depicts Meriwether Lewis and William Clark returning here in 1806 after their two-year so-called voyage of discovery, all the way up the Missouri River and then into Oregon. A bit about the work (with a really terrible photo) at https://www.nps.gov/places/the-captains-return.htm.  The statue used to be a bit upriver and lower down on the levee, where it would sometimes be inundated (https://tinyurl.com/y6mww2js). The explorers probably would not want to come through today's icy Mississippi.                  

CITY DAILY PHOTO FEBRUARY THEME - DOUBLE

 

Masked double self-portrait, mirror maze, St. Louis Union Station. City Daily Photo members around the world do it in pairs at https://citydailyphoto.org/category/theme-days/ .