Stainless Saint

Seven to seven, San Francisco's Art Commission stood deadlocked last week after months of bitter bickering. The question at issue was whether or not the city should authorize the erection of a 180-ft. stainless steel statue of St. Francis on Christmas Tree Point, across the city from famed Telegraph Hill. Leading the opposition were Banker Herbert Fleishhacker and Mrs. Adolph B. Spreckels; champions for the defense were Artist William Gaskin and a Mrs. Marie de Lavega Welch West. Words grew hotter, tempers frayed.

"Send for the Mayor," someone cried. "He has a vote!''

In due time Mayor Angelo Rossi appeared, listened to the arguments and promptly cast his vote in favor of the statue. Out in the corridor an excited crowd almost mobbed Sculptor Beniamino Bufano. "Good old Benny!" they shouted. "The statue wins!" Artist Bufano, who chopped off his trigger ringer during the War, frequently sleeps in his clothes, and lives almost exclusively on nuts, is a sculptor of un questioned ability who has had a burning ambition to give San Francisco a heroic statue of her patron saint.

In Paris a few years ago he completed one of black granite, 25 ft. high, 10 ft. thick at the base. When San Franciscans failed to produce enough money to move it sight unseen to California, he abandoned it in a French barn (where it is still held for unpaid storage) and returned to California with two smaller statues salvaged from stone chopped out from under the saint's arms.

The growth of WPA projects gave Sculptor Bufano another chance. Abandoning stone, he thought of a figure of glittering stainless steel, arms upraised in benediction. He made a model of redwood and copper, shrewdly choosing Regional Director Joseph Danysh of the Federal Art Project for his model. Then the arguments were on. Even the Catholic Church was divided, Father George of the Franciscans, representing the Father Provincial of the Western United States, violently objecting that the statue was an insult to his Order, Archbishop Mitty approving.

Now to be erected as a WPA project, the statue will cost $35,000, and weigh 65 tons. A new stainless alloy containing 2% white glass will be used for the sheets forming the statue. There will be an interior staircase, an observation platform in the Apostle of Humility's head, and on the too of his head will splash a drinking fountain and bath for the wild birds St. Francis loved.

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