Statue Snubbed

"It's a piece of second-or third-rate art looking for a first-rate controversy." This critical whack, laid on last week by New York City's Mayor LaGuardia, precipitated the loudest Manhattan art squabble since Frederick MacMonnies' famed statue of Civic Virtue ("the Fat Boy") was exiled to a suburban square. The mayor referred to a slab-limbed plaster aviator, titled Wings for Victory, by Sculptor Thomas Lo Medico (see cut). Winner of a $1,000 prize in an Artists for Victory Inc. competition, the aviator, in a 24-ft. copy, was to have towered over the Fifth Avenue plaza before Manhattan's Public Library. Gloomed Sculptor Lo Medico: "We sculptors have to know about carpentry, and mathematics, and modeling, and casting. I'm only sorry we don't know more about politics."

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