Icon refreshed

Aimee Wilson

Take a closer look when driving through Cromwell over the next few months and you might notice that its iconic fruit sculpture is looking rather shiny and new.

The landmark 1.8m apple, pear, nectarine and apricot fruit have been given a thorough clean and a fresh coat of paint thanks to Southland graffiti artist Danny Owens (aka Deow).

Contracted by Naylor Love Central Otago, project manager Chris Baines says the construction company jumped at the chance to try something new and interesting. With most of their work in the commercial sector, particularly around Queenstown Lakes, they successfully tendered the project from the Central Otago District Council, who asked them to give the fruit a new lease of life. “They didn’t want anything extravagant, just a refresh.” Using mobile elevated work platforms (MEWPs), Naylor Love provided all of the access equipment to be able to safely reach around all of the different areas of the fruit. The council had been looking for a specialised painter for over a year now, and finding somebody suitably experienced was proving a hard task. But Naylor Love tracked down Deow, who has been living and working between Los Angeles and Southland, and he completed the work in just under a week, in mid-April. Originally built in 1989 as part of a Rotary Club project, the Big Fruit’s original designer Otto Muller was a renowned engineer who introduced thermal dynamics to the orchard industry back in the 1960s. He died in 2020 aged 96 but will always be remembered for introducing the tourist talking point into the town – among other things.

He’s quite iconic – a personality, and he was a big part of how the industry evolved

Otto once said that if the fruit was big enough, it would provide enough of a distraction to passing motorists on the state highway, and they would put on their left blinker and pull over. For years many have argued that the sculpture is missing grapes and cherries – now two of the largest growth industries in the Cromwell basin.

Big Fruit today. Photo Barnaby Lamb (Naylor Love)

We asked the nearest orchardist, Simon Webb, what his thoughts were on the Big Fruit, and he believes the iconic landmark is identified with Cromwell in people’s minds. “People have said, does it need a cherry or grapes? But it’s not about what is there, it’s what it represents for the Cromwell community.” Coincidentally, it was Otto who started the first trials of overhead sprinkler frost fighting on the Webb Orchard as a technical advisor for A M Bisley back in the day. A revolutionary concept in New Zealand at the time, the Bisley company offered to supply all of the equipment and set up an installation on one part of the orchard. It was a complete success and J R Webb and Sons went on to become the first Central Otago orchard to use the system. “He’s quite iconic – a personality, and he was a big part of how the industry evolved,” Simon says. But back to the large fruit sculpture; the last time it was painted was in 2016, and before that it hadn’t received any attention for 12 years. The council has now made a commitment to making it look clean and bright every five years. It must collect a lot of dust up there, and Cromwell can be quite a windy place at times. Someone who couldn’t be prouder of the small Central Otago town and its Big Fruit sculpture is the Deputy Mayor Neil Gillespie. He once said, “New York may be nicknamed the Big Apple, but Cromwell has the real thing.”