From 1955 until his death in 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. served as the universal spokesperson for the dreams, hopes and aspirations of millions of African Americans and personified their struggle to overcome segregation, discrimination and racial hatred in the United States. Dr. King's legacy - his dream of equality and universal brotherhood - embodied in his "I Have A Dream" speech, is an inspiration to people throughout the world.

In recognition of Dr. King's contribution to humanity in the area of civil rights, the student body of The University of Texas at Austin is commissioning the construction of a bronze sculpture of Dr. King, which will be located on the East Mall of the campus. Set in a beautiful, open space, the sculpture will be centrally located between Speedway to the west and the East Mall Fountain and bus turn-around to the east.

For more information on the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., see Atlanta, Georgia's link-laden Yahoo Site , Stanford's Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project , the Seattle Times' educational Martin Luther King, Jr. page , or audio excerpts from Dr. King on Webcorp's WWW site .

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History of the Project

The idea to erect a sculpture of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on The University of Texas at Austin campus originated in the fall of 1987, when students formed the Martin Luther King Jr. Sculpture Foundation.

Student organizers of the effort went to then president and now chancellor, William H. Cunningham, asking that The University erect a statue of Dr. King to balance the statuary on campus that many students, particularly African-American students, viewed as a painful reminder of Texas' past history of segregation and discrimination.

President Cunningham and The University of Texas System Board of Regents responded to the students' request by authorizing $150,000 for the pedestal that the sculpture would be mounted on; however, the burden of raising the funds for the statue itself was entirely on the shoulders of the student body.

In the spring of 1989, the student group had selected a sculptor and planned to rely on private donations to fund the creation of the sculpture. Over the next several years, members of the student committee met with UT officials in hopes of creating support for the project with the UT administrators.

Due to the transient nature of the student population, the student effort started and stopped over the course of the next eight years as groups of students would get energized and organized to raise funds only to sputter out as they graduated or left The University.

Progress was finally made in March of 1995, when a student referendum was held during the Student Government Association election. The referendum called for a $1 per-student per-semester fee for four years in an amount not to exceed $500,000, which would go toward funding the sculpture. Any funds remaining after the development of the statue will go into an endowed scholarship fund bearing Dr. King's name.

Students approved the referendum by a two-thirds majority. The referendum was then voted on and approved by the Texas State Legislature, and the fund for collection of the fee was formally authorized by The University of Texas System Board of Regents.

A committee, composed of four UT administrators, four UT students and a community representative, was formed to oversee the completion of the project.

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The Five Finalists

In March of 1997, the panel of jurors and the MLK Sculpture Committee narrowed the candidates down to the five most qualified artists and provided each artist with $5,000 to produce a maquette of the proposed sculpture. The completed maquettes will be on display in the outer lobby of Flawn Academic Center from September 23 through October 10, 1997.

The five finalists are:

• Tina Allen
Beverly Hills, California

See Tina Allen's maquette.

Tina Allen is an internationally renowned sculptor and painter. Her creations have appeared in some of the most prestigious galleries in this country and abroad. Tina's creative expression began at the young age of 5 when she started painting. She was discovered at the age of 10 by William Zorach, at that time, one of the five greatest living sculptors of the world! Zorach continued to encourage Tina through the years. One of her most memorable moments was when she presented the sculpture, "The Icon I-Tribute to the African American Man" to Nelson and Winnie Mandela during their visit to Los Angeles on June 29, 1990. Her latest works include the conceptual design for the Statue of Liberty project endorsed by the South African Government.

Allen's work has developed into two distinctive veins. The first is the Historical Body of Representational Sculptures recording the contributions and aspirations of the African Diaspora. For Allen, molding her lifelike figures is "writing our history in bronze." This need to control the black aesthetic and to develop a visual landscape that is nurturing and life affirming to people of color, is fundamental in her thinking. The second personal expression of her work is Symbolic Abstractions, with hints of figurative expressions growing out of the forms.

Ms. Allen's career took off by leaps and bounds when she won a national contest that awarded her an $85,000 commission in 1986 to create a nine and one-half foot statue of A. Philip Randolph (Black labor leader). This was the first statue of many to follow. She is currently completing the 12 foot seated Alex Haley Memorial for the Haley's Square Complex in Knoxville, Tennessee, and preparing a 4 story-high pictorial relief for King/Drew Medical Magnet High School in Los Angeles, California.

Tina Allen, a Los Angeles resident, spent her early years in the West Indies. She has lived in New York City and Mobile, Alabama. Allen is graduate of Visual Arts in New York and the University of South Alabama. She continued her advance studies at Pratt Institute and the University of Venice, Italy.

• Ed Dwight
Denver, Colorado

See Ed Dwight's maquette.

Ed Dwight has been an artist since his youth. He is also a graduate engineer, a former USAF Test pilot and America's first Black Astronaut trainee. After a successful career as an Air Force Officer and pilot, real estate and construction entrepreneur, Ed has dedicated the last 20 years solely to his art endeavors.

While in the Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) Program at the University of Denver, Ed was commissioned by the State of Colorado Centennial Commission to create a series of bronzes depicting the contribution of Blacks to the American Frontier West. The series of thirty bronzes was on exhibit for several years throughout the United States, and gained widespread acceptance and critical acclaim. In 1979, while the series was on exhibit at the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (National Park Service), Ed was encouraged to create a bronze series portraying the history and historical roots of Jazz. The series created, titled "JAZZ: An American Art Form," now consists of over seventy bronzes characterizing the creation and evolution of Jazz from its African and European roots to the fusions of contemporary music currently. The first large-scale commissioned work was the abolitionist Frederick Douglass in 1978. This life-sized monument was commissioned by the National Park Service, and is on display in Anacostia, Maryland. Since this commission, Ed has completed over 60 large scale commissioned installations throughout the U.S. Ed has created over 6,000 other sculptures and is represented in over twenty-five galleries throughout the United States, including Hawaii.

Recently, Ed was commissioned to create the largest memorial to African Americans in history. The 90 ft. long Black Patriots Memorial will be installed on the National Mall between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.

Ed's sculptures are rigorously collected by museums, institutions and art appreciators throughout the world.

• Ralph Helmick
Newton, Massachusetts

See Ralph Helmick's maquette.

Sculpture can't cure cancer, feed the hungry or erase bigotry. It can promote civic meditation, provide an opportunity for citizen reflection, and give focus to a setting and a set of cultural concerns. As a sculptor, Ralph Helmick strives to create accessible, challenging artwork which finds a place in the social fabric of a community.

The human form, a favorite and recurring subject, invites a range of formal and conceptual explorations. Ralph views the human form as a kind of theater, able to absorb and explore the complexities of a 21st century world culture. Whether through over-life-size figuration or monumental portraiture, it has the potential to evoke empathy and mystery.

Recently completed public artworks include "Through His Eyes," a memorial to early civil rights leader John Wesley Dobbs, created for the Atlanta Olympics, the "Stevie Ray Vaughan Memorial" on Town Lake in Austin, and "Leatherlips" (Sha-Te-Yah-Ron-Yah), a stone portrait monument of the noted Wyandotte Indian Chief in Dublin, Ohio.

Current work includes the "Pasadena Robinson Memorial" commemorating Jackie Robinson and his brother Mack in Pasadena, California (their hometown), to be installed in November 1997.

Ralph Helmick has been sculpting professionally for 17 years. For the past 10 years, he has concentrated on public works of art and is responsible for 10 major public commissions. His educational background includes an honors degree in American Studies from the University of Michigan, a scholarship to the Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture, and an MFA in Sculpture from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where he serves on the faculty.

• Wendy Ross
Bethesda, Maryland

See Wendy Ross's maquette.

Wendy Ross, a native of Washington, D.C., studied at the University of Wisconsin and San Francisco Art Institute prior to receiving a Fellowship and MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. For over 20 years, she has been a full-time sculptor working with architects, federal agencies, corporations, and design professionals to create both private and public works of art. Ross works in sculpture ranging in size from residential to monumental scale for both indoor and outdoor settings. Her studio is located in Bethesda, Maryland.

Ms. Ross is internationally known for her corporate and public portraits and has been awarded numerous commissions. Her work can be found in the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Capitol, National Park Service, University of Washington, School of International Studies, Gannett Corporation, Kidder Peabody Corporation (Geneva, Switzerland), among others.

Her commissions have included heroic-size bronze portraits of members of the U.S. Supreme Court and the United States Congress. She executed the portraits of Justice William O. Douglas for the Supreme Court and Senator Henry M. Jackson for the U. S. Capitol, among others. In 1989, after a nation-wide competition, Ms. Ross was awarded a major Federal commission to execute the Phillip Burton Memorial in tribute to Burton's far reaching environmental legislation which created the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. More recently, Ross was commissioned by George Mason University to create a full-figure bronze of their namesake -- the colonial patriot George Mason.

Ms. Ross' talent lies in her ability to distill and capture the essential expressive qualities unique to an individual. Her bronze portraits seem to "live and breathe." Upon viewing his bronze bust during the unveiling in 1977, the late Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas' first comment was:

"By God, that is the face I shave every morning!"

• Anna Koh-Varilla and Jeffrey Varilla
Chicago, Illinois

See Anna Koh-Varilla and Jeffrey Varilla's maquette.

Anna and Jeffrey Varilla have been collaborating on commissioned works of sculpture since 1986. Their work is realistic, employing a natural, practical artistic vocabulary informed by centuries of Western art. They find classic realism to be their preferred vehicle for the exploration of human psychological intent, allowing them to communicate directly as well as enabling them to make a statement relevant to the contemporary human condition.

Anna began her education in Seoul, Korea, when, at the age of twelve, she was among 120 Korean students accepted for specialized training in the fine arts. Since that time she has been continuously engaged in the study and practice of the visual arts, particularly sculpture.

Anna has been teaching regularly for eight years. She has helped many artists develop their abilities in sculpting the portrait and figure, and a number of her students have gone on to execute commission sculpture work of their own.

Jeffrey has studied art history with a concentration on the Renaissance and the 17th Century. He has had many years of professional experience in painting and sculpture. Scrupulous attention to detail, high standards in the selection of materials and love for the Old Masters have been trademarks of his work. He has also worked in fine art restoration for almost a decade, which he cites as invaluable to the technical mastery he has achieved.

Together Anna and Jeffrey have fulfilled numerous portrait commissions by balancing their artistic viewpoints and thereby creating seamless and extraordinary works. They strive to foster a collaborative relationship between artist and patron, in order to create an end result that is both relevant and artistically meaningful. Anna and Jeffrey also work independently of each other and each maintains a portfolio of their own unique and remarkable artistic creations.

The Five Finalists' Proposed Models (Maquettes)

The final sculpture will be built on the East Mall of the University of Texas campus. Set in a beautiful, open space, it will be centrally located between Speedway to the west and the East Mall Fountain and bus turn-around to the east.

SEE THE ARTISTS' MAQUETTES:
• Tina Allen
• Ed Dwight
• Ralph Helmick
• Wendy Ross
• Jeffrey Varilla and Anna Koh Varilla

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Process of Selecting an Artist

The University of Texas at Austin has been working closely with The Texas Commission On The Arts' Programs and Public Partnership Division to help the committee select an artist to produce a sculpture of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The MLK Sculpture Committee sent out a "Call for Artists," asking that interested artists with demonstrated experience with life-size sculptures in the bronze medium submit a statement of their qualifications along with slides illustrating their previous work.

The initial review of the artists' submissions was made by a panel of select jurors, which was facilitated by The Texas Commission On The Arts, based on the past work of the artists. The jurors selected the five most qualified artists and recommended them to the MLK Sculpture Committee for approval. The Committee accepted the jurors' recommendations and these five artists were selected as finalists.

The five finalists were awarded a $5,000 honorarium to create a maquette, or model, of the proposed sculpture. The completed maquettes will be on display in the outer lobby of Flawn Academic Center from September 23 through October 10, 1997.

During the fall semester of 1997, the panel of jurors, along with the MLK Sculpture Committee, will conduct interviews with each of the finalists to discuss their maquettes and their budget proposals. Based on the maquettes, the budget proposals and the interviews, the committee, with the assistance of the panel of jurors, will select the artist whose work most successfully conveys Dr. King's message of equality and brotherhood.

Finally, the MLK Sculpture Committee will make a recommendation to the president of The University regarding which artist should receive the commission and the president will formally place that recommendation before the Board of Regents at the November, 1997 Regents meeting.

Completion of the sculpture is projected for the spring of 1998.

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The Jurors

A panel of four experts in the field of art and art history were chosen to assist the MLK Sculpture Committee in reviewing the artists' submissions and selecting the five finalists. This panel of jurors will again provide their expertise in reviewing the artists' maquettes and proposals and will be instrumental in selecting the artist who will ultimately produce a sculpture of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for The University of Texas at Austin.

The Texas Commission on the Arts' Programs and Public Partnership Division has served as a consultant to The University throughout the course of this project. They been instrumental in facilitating the judging process and will assist the MLK Sculpture Committee in reaching a consensus on which artist will be selected to receive the commission.

The panel of jurors includes:

• Mr. David Deming, M.F.A Sculptor Dean, College of Fine Arts The University of Texas at Austin
	• Mr. Luis Jimenez, M.F.A. Sculptor, Professor of Art The University of Houston
• Ms. Harriet Kelley Art Collector Member, UT Austin Fine Arts Advisory Council
	• Dr. Alvia Wardlaw Curator, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston Associate Professor, Texas Southern University

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The Committee Members

The Martin Luther King Jr. Sculpture Committee is composed of four administrators from The University of Texas at Austin, four UT Austin students and one community representative. This committee is responsible for overseeing the MLK Sculpture Project artist competition, the selection of finalists, and recommending the winning artist to the president of The University. The committee is also responsible for informing the student body, the campus community and the general public regarding the progress of the project.

The members of the committee are: UT-AUSTIN ADMINISTRATORS • Terry A. Wilson Associate Director, Office of Public Affairs Chairman, Martin Luther King Jr. Sculpture Project • Dr. James Hill Associate Vice President for Administration and Public Affairs • Ms. Susan Wagnon Clagett Associate Vice President for Administration and Public Affairs • Dr. Richard Shiff Effie Marie Cain Regents Chair in Art Director, Center for the Study of Modernism

COMMUNITY REPRESENTATIVE
• Ms. Marion Childress-Usher
Director, Wesley Foundation of Austin

UT-AUSTIN STUDENTS • Ms. Alicia Glover Fortson Third Year Law Student UT-Austin School of Law • Ms. Onjaleke Seamster Junior, Applied Learning and Development Executive Director, Student Government Association • Ms. Nichelle Taylor Senior, Plan II Honors Program • Mr. Marlen Whitley Senior, Ethnic Studies President, Student Government Association

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Comments and Questions

Please take a few moments to tell us what you think by visiting our on-line comments form. You may also send email to:

mlk@opa.wwh.utexas.edu

Or you can write to:

Terry A. Wilson
Executive Director, Office of Community Relations
Chairman, MLK Sculpture Committee
The University of Texas at Austin
P.O. Box N
Austin, Texas 78713-8914
phone: (512) 232-4850 fax: (512) 232-4848

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