Arthur Ashe Monument

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Arthur Ashe Monument
Arthur Ashe monument, Richmond, Va.jpg
The monument in 2015
Arthur Ashe Monument
Artist Paul DiPasquale
Year1996 (1996)
Medium Bronze sculpture
Subject Arthur Ashe
Dimensions8.5 m (28 ft)
3.7 m (12 ft; sculpture only)
Location Richmond, Virginia, U.S.
Coordinates 37°33′54″N77°28′44″W / 37.5651°N 77.4790°W / 37.5651; -77.4790

The Arthur Ashe Monument is a bronze sculpture by Paul DiPasquale installed along Richmond, Virginia's Monument Avenue. The statue depicts tennis player Arthur Ashe, who was born, raised and buried in Richmond.

Contents

Description

The statue is situated on a 16-foot granite pedestal on a traffic island, at the intersection of Monument Avenue and Roseneath Road. [1] The 12-foot tall bronze sculpture depicts Arthur Ashe holding a tennis racket in one hand and books in the other, surrounded by children. [2] [3] The books are raised higher than the tennis racket; this was requested by Ashe himself, as he tended to emphasize education over sports. [3] Ashe's depiction faces west and the children face east. [3] [4]

Background

Arthur Ashe

Ashe was born at Richmond's St. Philip Hospital for Negroes on March 10, 1943. [5] During his childhood, Richmond was segregated, and he was denied entry to tennis tournaments and was not allowed to practice on the city's best courts. [6] [7] In 1960, Ashe moved to St. Louis to attend Sumner High School. [5] In the following years, Ashe would become the first black player selected to the United States Davis Cup team (1963), and was the only black man to win the singles title at the US Open (1968), the Australian Open (1975), and Wimbledon (1975) tennis tournaments. He retired in April 1980. Following his death of AIDS-related pneumonia on February 6, 1993, Ashe's body lay in state at Virginia's Executive Mansion, located in Richmond. [5]

Monument Avenue

At the time of the statue's construction, Monument Avenue had statues of several Generals of the Confederate States Army, as well as Confederate States Navy Commander Matthew Fontaine Maury and Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Among the tallest were the Robert E. Lee Monument, which stood 21 feet tall atop a 40-foot pedestal, and the Davis Memorial, which sat on a 65-foot column. [3] [8] The monuments, constructed from 1890 to 1929, were likely influenced by the then-popular belief that the Confederacy was just and heroic, an ideology also referred to as the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. [7] [9]

History

DiPasquale met Ashe in 1992 when Wyatt Kingston introduced them, and received permission to design a statue of him. Nine crayon and pencil studies of Ashe were created before his death in 1993. Following his death, Ashe's widow Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe approved the studies, and recommended Virginia Heroes Incorporated for funding. [10] The designs were first unveiled, in plaster form, in December 1994 at the Ashe Center. [11]

With the urging of City Manager Robert Bobb, the Richmond City Council approved the placement of the statue on Monument Avenue in June 1995. [11] This decision was met with opposition by both black and white people, both objecting to its placement beside statues of Confederate generals. [12] One alternative location, supported by Mayor Leonidas B. Young II, was in the formerly whites-only Byrd Park. [7]

On July 17, city council held an eight hour long hearing on the location of the statue, eventually voting 7-0 in favor of the Monument Avenue location. Several council members said that the hearing changed their opinions on the matter, especially comments by Ashe's brother and widow. [7] The groundbreaking was eventually held on August 15. 500 attended the event, and several people raised Confederate flags behind the stage. [13]

On January 1, 1996, the Richmond Times-Dispatch published a letter by Moutoussamy-Ashe. In the letter, she argued that the monument "honors Richmond, Virginia, more than it does its son, his legacy, and his life's work." [14] According to Moutossamy-Ashe, her husband had expected the monument to go in front of an African-American sports hall-of-fame. [15] Several days later, Moutoussamy-Ashe reached an agreement with Citizens for Excellence in Public Art, a group led by gallery owner Beverly Reynolds, wherein both parties would help raise $20 million for the envisioned hall-of-fame, and the DiPasquale statue would be moved there upon completion. At this point, CEMA would hold a $1 million international competition to find a better design to be placed at Monument Avenue. The group had raised $200 thousand by the time Richmond City Council shot their plan down. [11] [16] [7]

The statue was cast by DiPasquale in Waynesboro, Virginia and shipped to Richmond on a flatbed truck driven by Robbie Drumheller. The statue was placed upon its pedestal on July 3, 1996, [17] and unveiled on July 10. [2]

George Floyd protests

On July 1, 2020, amid the George Floyd protests, Mayor Levar Stoney ordered all statues to Confederate generals on city property taken down; as a result, the only statue remaining on Monument Avenue is that of Ashe. [18]

On July 16, the pedestal of the monument was vandalized with spray paint reading "White Lives Matter" and "WLM." A man claiming to be the vandal spoke to passers-by, saying "You put it on our statues, I'll put it on yours." [19] [20] Ashe's family gave the city of Richmond permission to remove the statue if this was needed to protect it from further harm; this was initially misreported as a request to remove the statue. [21]

Reception

In 2017, Mental Floss named the monument #3 on its listicle "10 Unintentionally Horrifying Statues of Famous People," writing that Ashe was "frozen forever in a state of seemingly mocking [the children] for their lack of height." [22] When reached out to by Salon , sculptor DiPasquale said that "If you always see what you always saw, you will always get what you always got," and that "judging art, like life, depends on what you bring to it, I'm sure."

References

  1. Culpepper, Chuck (July 10, 2020). "Arthur Ashe, who stood for so much, might be the last statue standing in Richmond". The Washington Post . Archived from the original on September 1, 2020. Retrieved August 26, 2020.
  2. 1 2 "Ashe Statue Joins Those of Confederates". The New York Times . July 17, 1996. Archived from the original on October 21, 2021. Retrieved August 22, 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Driggs, Sarah S. (June 27, 1997). "National Historic Landmark Nomination Form: Monument Avenue Historic District" (PDF). Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Archived (PDF) from the original on June 30, 2021. Retrieved August 22, 2020.
  4. Kennicott, Philip (July 29, 2020). "On Richmond's evolving Monument Avenue, myth and ugly lies run deep". The Washington Post . Archived from the original on August 15, 2020. Retrieved August 22, 2020.
  5. 1 2 3 Arsenault, Raymond (2018). Arthur Ashe: A Life. New York City: Simon & Schuster.
  6. Moore, Kenny (December 21, 1992). "The Eternal Example". Sports Illustrated . Archived from the original on July 31, 2020. Retrieved August 22, 2020.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Lieb, Jonathan I. (July 2002). "Separate times, shared spaces: Arthur Ashe, Monument Avenue and the politics of Richmond, Virginia's symbolic landscape". Cultural Geographies . 9 (3): 286–312. Bibcode:2002CuGeo...9..286L. doi:10.1191/1474474002eu250oa. S2CID   143324432.
  8. Orlinsky, Katie (July 13, 2020). "Tear Down the Monuments, Bring Our Cities to Life". The Nation . Archived from the original on August 19, 2020. Retrieved August 22, 2020.
  9. Epps, Garrett (May 14, 2017). "The Motionless Ghosts That Haunt the South". The Atlantic . Archived from the original on August 19, 2020. Retrieved August 22, 2020.
  10. "Sketch of Arthur Ashe, by Paul DiPasquale, 1993". virginiahistory.org. Virginia Historical Society. Archived from the original on August 12, 2020. Retrieved August 22, 2020.
  11. 1 2 3 "Statue's Path Wasn't Smooth: Debates Focused on Symbolism, Heroes, Justice, Stie, Sculptor". The Richmond Times-Dispatch . July 8, 1996.
  12. "Race-Tinged Furor Stalls Arthur Ashe Memorial". The New York Times . July 9, 1995. Archived from the original on August 18, 2020. Retrieved August 21, 2020.
  13. Lerman, David (August 16, 1995). "Ashe Breaks New Ground". Daily Press . Archived from the original on October 2, 2023. Retrieved August 21, 2020.
  14. "Ashe's Wife Opposes Monument". Daily Press . January 2, 1996. Archived from the original on October 27, 2020. Retrieved August 22, 2020.
  15. "Arthur Ashe Memorial in Limbo". Daily Press . January 5, 1996. Archived from the original on March 4, 2021. Retrieved August 22, 2020.
  16. "City Firm on Ashe Statue Monument Avenue Memorial Location Wins Over Council". Daily Press . March 27, 1996. ProQuest   342786667. Archived from the original on October 2, 2023. Retrieved August 22, 2020.
  17. "Arthur Ashe Statue Set Up in Richmond at Last". The New York Times . July 5, 1996. Archived from the original on March 30, 2017. Retrieved August 22, 2020.
  18. Lavoie, Denise (July 10, 2020). "Statue of Arthur Ashe won't be removed in Richmond". Daily Press . Archived from the original on August 7, 2020. Retrieved August 22, 2020.
  19. Garcia, Sandra E. (June 17, 2020). "Arthur Ashe Statue in Virginia Vandalized With 'White Lives Matter'". The New York Times . Archived from the original on July 7, 2020. Retrieved August 22, 2020.
  20. Vozzella, Laura; Bethea, April (July 17, 2020). "'White lives matter' painted on Arthur Ashe monument in Richmond". The Washington Post . Archived from the original on August 19, 2020. Retrieved August 22, 2020.
  21. Young, Ryan (10 July 2020). Arthur Ashe statue to stay up in Richmond after vandalism, ‘White Lives Matter’ graffiti Archived 2020-07-13 at the Wayback Machine . Yahoo Sports. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  22. Keyser, Anna (November 29, 2017). "10 Unintentionally Horrifying Statues of Famous People". Mental Floss . Archived from the original on July 28, 2020. Retrieved August 22, 2020.