Zenos Frudakis - Public Monuments and Portrait Sculpture
Welcome to the blog of Zenos Frudakis. You'll find news about the latest sculptures, information about the sculpture process, behind the scenes in the Frudakis studio, and personally guided tours of the sculptures of Philadelphia.
My alumni magazine, The Pennsylvania Gazette, published an interview with me titled Sculpting a Life Story. Here are links to some of the sculptures featured in the article, as well as to the article itself.
Sculpting a Life Story
Download a PDF of the article >
Some of the sculptures in the article:
Charles R. Schwab, American investor and financial executive, founded his San Francisco-based firm in 1971 as a traditional brokerage company and became a pioneer in the discount brokerage business in 1974. Mr. Schwab gained an early advantage by offering a combination of low prices and fast, efficient order execution, quickly establishing himself as the nation’s largest discount broker. Today, the company ranks among the leading financial services firms in the United States and is headquartered in Westlake, Texas. Schwab delivers a full-service investing experience to clients through domestic offices, online platforms, and multilingual international offices. Additionally, Mr. Schwab serves as Chairman of Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. and Charles Schwab Bank, and is a trustee of The Charles Schwab Family of Funds, Schwab Investments, Schwab Capital Trust, and Schwab Annuity Portfolios, all registered investment companies.
Monumental Sculpture / Portrait Statue
Size: 8-feet high, 3-feet wide, 20-inches deep
Weight: 720 pounds
Installation: 2024
Media: Bronze
Collection: Charles Schwab Headquarters
Location: Charles Schwab Headquarters, Corporate Campus, Westlake, Texas
Frederick Douglass (February 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer and statesman. Son of a slave woman and an unknown white man, "Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey" was born on Maryland's eastern shore. At the age of eight he was sent to Baltimore to live with a ship carpenter named Hugh Auld where he learned to read and first learned about abolition and abolitionists. "Going to live at Baltimore," Douglass would later say, "laid the foundation, and opened the gateway, to all my subsequent prosperity." After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, becoming famous for his oratory and antislavery writings. He was described by abolitionists in his time as a living counterexample to enslavers' arguments that enslaved people lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens. At this time, Northerners found it difficult to believe that such a great orator had once been enslaved. In 1845, in response to this disbelief, Douglass published his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.
Portrait Bust / Work in Progress
Size: Over life size
Media: Clay
Location: Frudakis Studio
Related Links
Margaret Higgins Sanger (September 14, 1879 – September 6, 1966) was an American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. Sanger popularized the term "birth control", opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established organizations that evolved into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Relief Portrait Sculpture
Size: Bas-relief portrait
Media: Bronze
Created: 2023
Collection: Freedom from Religion Foundation
Location: FFRF Offices, Madison, Wisconsin
Related Links
Nobel prize winner, Jack Kilby (November 8, 1923 – June 20, 2005), is recognized for his patent in 1959 for the first integrated circuit, also known as the microchip. Jack Kilby’s work as an American electrical engineer at Texas Instruments also resulted in the first handheld calculator, the “Pocketronic,” as well as the invention of the first thermal printer. In December 10 of 2000, Kilby was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. Other honers include the National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology. To honor Jack Kilby’s contributions to science and engineering, the portrait statue of Kilby holds a diagram of the integrated circuit in one hand, and a handheld calculator in the other.
Monumental Sculpture / Portrait Statue
Size: 7-feet high
Installation: 2021
Media: Bronze
Collection: University of Texas
Location: Texas Instruments Plaza, Univeristy of Texas, Dallas, Texas
Related Links
Jacques Pépin relief portrait by Zenos Frudakis. Pépin’s extraordinary career includes his work as chef in numerous prestigious restaurants in Paris and America, and he when living in France he was personal chef of French President Charles de Gaulle. Pépin has authored more than 30 cookbooks, and has written for The New York Times, Food & Wine and other publications. He is an educator of the culinary arts, appearing in numerous American television programs. Pépin was a longtime friend of the American chef Julia Child, and their 1999 PBS series Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home won a Daytime Emmy Award. He holds a BA and a MA from Columbia University in French literature. Today, Pépin also works as an artist, exhibiting limited edition prints and original artwork.
Relief Portrait Sculpture
Size: 18 inches high, 12 inches wide, approx. 2 inch frame
Media: Bronze
Created: 2023
Collection: The Yale Club
Location: The Yale Club, New York, New York
Related Sculpture
The Freedom From Religion Foundation has tailored special recognition awards for deserving supporters of freethought or the separation of church and state. Zenos Frudakis created the Foward Award sculpture award that is given to each award recipient. Shown in photo: Cecile Richards (on right), the former President of Planned Parenthood received the Forward Award, and sculptor Zenos Frudakis.
Award Figure Sculpture
Size: Award
Media: Bronze
Location: Private Collection of Award Winners
Related Links
The portrait bronze of Jacques Pépin, installed at Stone Acres Farm in Stonington, Connecticut, is a permanent tribute to this iconic French chef and his his lifelong influence in the culinary arts and home cooking. Pépin’s extraordinary career includes his work as chef in numerous prestigious restaurants in Paris and America, and he when living in France he was personal chef of French President Charles de Gaulle. Pépin has authored more than 30 cookbooks, and has written for The New York Times, Food & Wine and other publications. He is an educator of the culinary arts, appearing in numerous American television programs. Pépin was a longtime friend of the American chef Julia Child, and their 1999 PBS series Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home won a Daytime Emmy Award. He holds a BA and a MA from Columbia University in French literature. Today, Pépin also works as an artist, exhibiting limited edition prints and original artwork.
Portrait Sculpture
Size: Life size
Media: Bronze, mounted on pink granite sourced from Stoney Creek, CT
Installed: October 13, 2019
Location: Stone Acres Farm, Stonington, Connecticut
Related Sculpture
Richard Dawkins is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. He has received academic and writing awards, and has written numerous books including The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, The God Delusion, An Appetite for Wonder and Brief Candle in the Dark. He founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science in 2006.
Portrait Sculpture / Work in Progress
Size: Life size
Media: Clay
Location: Private Frudakis Studio
Related Links
The U.S. Air Force Memorial Honor Guard sculpture by Zenos Frudakis. The monument depicts the Colours Flight of the US Honor Guard. The 8-foot high bronze figures reflect the diversity in the US military. Left to right, they are a Caucasian male, an Afro-American male, a Hispanic male and a Caucasian female. The two figures at the center are the flag-bearers, one holding the American flag and the other holding the Air Force flag complete with battle streamers that represent the campaigns in which the US Air Force has taken part. The two flanking figures are the arms bearers who guard the flag.
Monumental Sculpture
Size: Four 8-foot high figures with 8-foot high flags and battle streamers
Media: Bronze
Installed: 2004
Location: Imperial War Museum, Duxford Airfield, Great Britain
Related Links
Relief sculpture of Michael Yon, former LOTOS Club President by sculptor Zenos Frudakis. The books on the upper shelf of the relief sculpture are dinner guests of the club, the books behind Yon and alongside him are autobiographical.
Relief Portrait Sculpture
Size: Portrait bas-relief, 24” wide by 36” tall
Media: Bronze
Installation: 2022
Collection: LOTOS Club
Location: Library, LOTOS Club, New York, New York
Ludwig von Mises was (September 29, 1881 – October 10, 1973) was an Austrian School economist, historian, logician, and sociologist. He wrote and lectured extensively on the societal contributions of classical liberalism. Mises is best known for his work on praxeology studies comparing communism and capitalism.
Portrait Sculpture
Size: Life size
Media: Bronze
Created: 2023
Location/Collection: Private Collection
Related Links
Frank “Sandy’ Tatum Jr. (July 7, 1920 – June 22, 2017) was an attorney, golf administrator, golf course architect, promoter, and an accomplished golfer. The Rhodes Scholar attended Stanford University where he was a member of Cypress Point Club and Stanford's golf team, winning the 1942 NCAA individual title and leading Stanford to team titles in 1941 and 1942. Tatum is a member of the Stanford Athletic Hall of Fame.
He led the restoration of San Francisco's municipal Harding Park, now called TPC Harding Park, successfully restoring it to PGA standards and it has since held high-profile golf events. Tatum worked on the design and development of numerous California courses, including The Links at Spanish Bay golf course in Pebble Beach, as well as co-designed The Preserve Golf Club in Carmel, Lockeford Springs Golf Course, Lodi, and Mount Shasta Resort in Mount Shasta.
Tatum supported and influenced young golfers as chairman of the First Tee of San Francisco chapter out of Harding Park and hosted "Sandy's Circle" to help fund the Youth on Course program through the Northern California Golf Association.
In April 2011, Tatum was inducted into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame.
The commemorative Sandy Tatum statuary, created by Zenos and cast at the Laran Bronze Foundry in Chester, Pa., includes a seven-foot likeness of Tatum standing in front of two youths flanking a staircase, which represents The First Tee’s nine core values – Honesty, Integrity, Sportsmanship, Respect, Confidence, Responsibility, Perseverance, Courtesy, and Judgement.
Monumental Sculpture
Size: 7-feet High, 3 figure composition
Media: Bronze
Dedication: August 2020
Location: TPC Harding Park, San Francisco
Related Links
In the Media
A Golf Sculpture’s Trip from Chester to San Francisco, Philadelphia Inquirer
PGA Champoinship Drama: Sandy Tatum Statue, San Francisco Chronicle
Zenos Frudakis, known as the Monument Man, in studio with smaller study for the James Braddock Monument.
Zenos Frudakis has spent the last fifty years sculpting life out of bronze, aiming to capture the likeness and spirit of his subjects and to shine a light on those who have helped foster change in the world.
Zenos Frudakis is known for his public monuments, portrait statues, busts, and figurative sculptures. Notable works include sculptures for Arlington National Cemetery, the National Academy of Design, the Imperial War Museum in England, and the US Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa.
Watch “The Monument Man” on Articulate, Episode 9, airing Friday, January 15 at 7:30 p.m. on PBS39, Philadelphia, or check local listings.
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Read moreWelcome to the blog of Zenos Frudakis. You'll find news about my latest sculptures, information about the sculpture process, behind the scenes in the Frudakis studio, and personally guided tours of the sculptures of Philadelphia by a real sculptor...
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