I was pleased to see the AP article you carried in the New Haven Register about the unveiling of the statue of Rosa Parks in the Capitol's Statuary Hall. The low angle photo of her statue with President Obama was visually arresting, emphasized the monumentality of the sculpture and first drew my interest to the piece.
As an art teacher and creator of a few, very minor sculptures in wood and metal when I was a fledgling art major at SCSC (now SCSU,) I can appreciate the amount of time and effort that the sculptor of the 2,700-pound bronze invested in this moving tribute to this iconic figure in the civil rights movement.
The artist probably had to survive an extensive competition to have been chosen to create the sculpture. Add to this the pressure to produce an artwork that is aesthetically pleasing and accurate as far as actually resembling the subject, the sculptor has to be admired.
Unfortunately, I was unable to determine who this excellent artist is because, for some reason, her (one can hope) or his name is nowhere to be found in the otherwise well-written article. Given the standard rubric of who, what, where, when and why that is the mantra of every reporter, one would think there would be at least a mention of the artwork's creator. Where is the "who?" Did the "who" get edited out of the article? Why isn't the "who" who contributed the centerpiece of this unveiling event, the statue, at least as important, at least in this case, as President Obama or Speaker Boehner or the statue of Jefferson Davis, the president of the long-ago disbanded confederacy, that Speaker Boehner mentioned because he thought the statue of Rosa Parks seemed to be contemplating it?
I'm hoping you will publish a follow-up article correcting this slight, revealing the identity of the sculptor and perhaps including some information about his or her background and previous successes.
Ron Gagliardi
Cheshire