“My playing years went by so fast, but I’m happy I was able to make my mark on the game,” said Pippen. “It’s hard to take a deep breath and look back on it all. At the same time, you are always trying to get to the next level and accomplish something new.”
(Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE/Getty Images)

By Adam Fluck | 08.25.10

The Chicago Bulls have plans to unveil a bronze statue of Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen that will be displayed permanently in the United Center at some point towards the end of the 2010-11 season.

“Not only is Scottie Pippen one of the greatest players to ever wear a Bulls uniform, but he’s among the best players in history of the league to play the game,” said Bulls Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf. “He had a tremendous impact in bringing six world championships to Chicago and there is no better way to pay tribute to him than with a permanent statue that honors his inspirational career.”

The statue will be crafted by Omri and Julie Rotblatt-Amrany of Highland Park, Ill., who also sculpted the famous Michael Jordan statue which was unveiled in January 1994 in conjunction with Jordan’s No. 23 jersey retirement.

“Words really can’t express my feelings,” Pippen told Bulls.com. “It’s an unbelievable honor and truly amazing. It’s something you dream of as a kid growing up, but you can never foresee those childhood fantasies becoming reality. You see statues of individuals who have done great things and made their mark on history, but as a basketball player, you never really think about arriving at this point. It’s an amazing honor for the Chicago Bulls to do this for me.”

Pippen was informed of the news the same week that he was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In his first year of eligibility, Pippen was inducted on Aug. 13 as an individual player and as a member of the 1992 Dream Team which won the gold medal in the Barcelona Summer Olympics.

Chief Noonday is part of the Grand Rapids Community Legends Project funded by the Peter Secchia Family Foundation.  The bronze work was unveiled Tuesday at the Pew Campus of Crand Valley State University.

“Today we unveiled Chief Nawquageezhig one of the foremost figures in the early history of Grand Rapids and certainly one of the most well known personalities from the Native American community,” says Joseph Becherer of the Community Legends Project.

The statues recognize the people — past and present — who were influential in shaping the city.

“It’s just an issue that you don’t know who you can be and feel good about yourself if you don’t know who you once were, so now we’re celebrating the people who made the community what it is,” says Secchia.

The first statue of Lucius Lyon was dedicated in 2008. The committee hopes to unveil a new statue every two years. Some of the future works will include Grand Rapids first African American mayor, Lyman Parks, and Amway co-founder Jay Van Andel.

“The vision for this is to help this community as it continues to grow, and change and evolve into the future remember some of the many individuals who helped to give it form,” says Becherer.

“That’s the purpose of this community legends,” says Secchia. “These are all diverse members who helped build a community, so we honor them.”

Chief Noonday was instrumental in the negotiations that opened up much of Michigan to settlement.

Reported by Mike Powers

A lifesize bronze sculpture of Tintin by Belgian artist Nat Neujean has been sold for £108,705

A lifesize bronze statue of comic book reporter Tintin and more than 200 other items linked to the diminutive globetrotter have fetched more than £870,000 at a Paris auction.

The most expensive lot was two inked and water-painted original panels from the 1938 King Ottokar’s Sceptre album, which went for £211,974.

The bronze statue, showing Tintin with his hands in his pockets and dog Snowy at his side, went for £108,705 in the Saturday auction at the Drouot-Montaigne auction house.

Belgian artist Herge’s adventures of Tintin have been translated into nearly 80 languages and sold more than 200million books since 1929.

Racial and cultural stereotypes in books such as Tintin In The Congo have prompted criticism, but demand for Tintin artifacts remains strong.

The statue of Tintin was one of 250 pieces of memorabilia sold at the Paris auction

The name of the sculpture, “Butterfly Boy,” was inspired by a 1942 poem written by young Pavel Friedmann during his incarceration in the Terezin Concentration Camp, prior to his deportation to Auschwitz and his ultimate death at the hands of the Nazis. “The last, the very last; So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow,” he wrote.  “….that butterfly was the last one.  Butterflies don’t live in here, in the ghetto.”  In the sculpture, a delicate golden butterfly rests lightly on the boy’s outstretched hands. On his chest is a yellow Star of David.

The event was sponsored by the New College Library Association, which raises funds to support the Cook Library, a shared resource of New College and the University of South Florida, Sarasota-Manatee.

Sidney Fagin worked on the sculpture in clay for many months, refining it in preparation for its bronzing by the Bronzart Foundry, which made a generous contribution toward making the statue a reality, as did many other members of the community. Bronzart Foundry owner and master craftsman Rick Frignoca served as a guiding light for Sidney Fagin in the months leading up to its final patination. Frignoca helped with the armature and even researched the exact kind of butterfly that would have lived in the Czech countryside at that time.

“I feel great pride that New College paid me the honor of accepting this sculpture as an addition to the Helen Fagin Holocaust Collection,” says Sidney Fagin.  “It is a token of sharing in our commitment to raising awareness in moral humanitarian values.”

The program was introduced by Brian Doherty, Dean of the Cook Library, followed by remarks by Helen Fagin.  After thanking New College, supporters Sally Lucke-Elkes and Joel Elkes, Martin and Barbara Arch, Martin and Arlene Rakitt and Rick Frignoca, Helen turned to her husband of 61 years.

Indonesian workers move a bronze statue depicting President Barack Obama to his former primary school in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Sunday.

JAKARTA, Indonesia — A statue of Barack Obama as a boy was placed late Sunday night at the Jakarta elementary school the U.S. president once attended, after its display in a public park prompted backlash in Indonesia’s capital.

The installation of the bronze statue a week after it was removed from public view was a low-key event officiated by the school’s principal and three local education officials. Scores of proud students had been among the crowd of 500 watching when Jakarta’s mayor unveiled the statue in the nearby park in December.

The likeness based on a childhood photograph shows a 10-year-old Obama smiling at a butterfly perched on his outstretched thumb.

The late night event was scheduled to finish before almost 500 students arrive for school Monday, and was not an attempt to keep a low profile, said the main fundraiser for the statue, Ron Mullers. The statue was also removed from the public park on a Sunday night.

Facebook campaign
Many Indonesians are proud of Obama’s connections to their country, but detractors of the statue’s park display argued an Indonesian hero should be honored instead. A Facebook campaign attracted more than 50,000 supporters of the statue’s removal, and court action was initiated to force it to be removed.

Mullers accused the critics of politicizing a statue meant to inspire Indonesian children to follow their dreams.

“This is a statue of boy named Little Barry who went to this school; it’s not President Obama,” Mullers said.

The representation of a man, woman and child emerging from a volcano was inaugurated at a ceremony featuring hundreds of drummers and dancers.

The statue, which cost £17m and is taller than the Statue of Liberty, stands on a hill overlooking the capital, Dakar. It marks Senegal’s 50 years of independence, and the president, Abdoulaye Wade has said he hopes it will become a tourist attraction.

Wade, 83, who is expected to seek another term in office at elections in 2012, said the monument commemorated the entire continent. “It brings to life our common destiny,” Reuters reported him saying at the launch ceremony. “Africa has arrived in the 21st century standing tall and more ready than ever to take its destiny into its hands.”

Wade has faced criticism for spending so much money on the structure when Dakar residents living in its shadow endure regular power blackouts and flooding. He has angered both Senegal’s Christian minority and some within the Muslim majority population.

Wade apologised to the former group after likening the monument to Christ, while some imams have condemned the Soviet realist-style statue as idolatrous. Other have expressed concern at the thigh-length hemline skirt worn by the female figure.

The newly restored statue is an attraction to visitors

A famous bronze statue of Captain Smith, master of the ill-fated Titanic ship, has a new look.

The statue, which was erected in Beacon Park in Lichfield in 1914, has been restored, as part of a project to improve the cathedral area of the city.

Though he was born in Stoke-on-Trent, there is no memorial to Captain Smith in his home town.

The Titanic sank on her maiden voyage in 1912 after striking an iceberg.

“Be British”

The statue of Captain Edward John Smith is now a central feature in Beacon Park, which is just yards from Lichfield Cathedral Close. It is now nearly 8ft (2.4m) tall, standing on a 7ft (2.1m) plinth of Cornish granite.

It shows him in defiant pose, reminding us of his famous last words, “Be British”.

It was created by a famous sculptor of the time, Lady Kathleen Scott. Lady Scott knew herself of the grief of losing a man to his duty; she was the widow of Robert Falcon Scott, the doomed Captain Scott of the Antarctic.

The story goes however that the authorities in Stoke-on-Trent refused the statue, even though Captain Smith had been born and raised in Hanley, not wishing to be associated with the perceived disgrace.

Statue

The statue had begun to show it age displaying a dull patina

The statue and plinth have now been conserved and cleaned as part of Lichfield District Council’s and Lichfield City Council’s multi-million pound project to transform the area of Beacon Park, The Garden of Remembrance and the Minster Pool & Walk.

This restoration comes hot on the heels of the recently restored Edward VII statue, also in the Beacon Park Museum Gardens, which was unveiled earlier this July.

Lichfield councillor Neil Roberts said: “The statue looks fantastic and is a fitting tribute to the memory of RMS Titanic.”

This work has been possible thanks to £3.9 million funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Big Lottery Fund, as part of their Parks for People programme.

CARDIFF-BY-THE-SEA, Calif. (AP) – A bronze surfer statue near San Diego has been the target of many gags, but never one this big and scary.

Unknown predawn pranksters on Saturday surrounded the roadside statue in Cardiff-by-the-Sea with a papier mache model of a great white shark that appeared to be swallowing it whole.

Crowds of gawkers and photographers gathered around the 16-foot creation after the sun rose.

San Diego County sheriff’s Lt. Tony Ray said no criminal report was filed because there was no damage to the statue.

The $120,000 sculpture called “Magic Carpet Ride” was commissioned by the Cardiff Botanical Society in 2007.

The statue has been bedecked with bras, skirts and witch hats so many times that locals have come to call it “The Cardiff Kook.”