DAV D ADICKES I

Such

Great Heights: From bananas to bigger than life sculptures, how David Adickes moved from war to wonder, shaping the greater Houston landmarks

BY MEGHAN HENDLEY LOPEZ PHOTOGRAPHY BY NATHAN LINDSTROM

1983, Adickes was commissioned to make his first monumental sculpture. He created the “Virtuoso”, a 36-foot steel and concrete statue of a string trio dispayed at the Lyric Center downtown Houston.

1986 , he created “Cornet” as a stage prop for the New Orleans World Fair now displayed in Galveston.

1990, he created the eight-foot bronze statue of President George H. W. Bush “Winds of Change” displayed at the Bush Intercontinental Airport.

1994 , he created a 67-foot statue of Sam Houston “A Tribute to Courage” near Huntsville, Texas.

“It was at the end of World War II, it was in all the papers. Do you remember that one…?,” chuckled David Adickes, sitting amongst a wild variety of sculptures and paintings in his massive warehouse on a scorching Summer’s day, tucked away behind the skyscrapers east of downtown. “My two older brothers were pilots, one in the navy and one in the marines, and it was a given I was going to be a pilot. The war was basically over but I joined halfway between VE Day and VJ Day Spring of 1945. There was one program the Navy had called the V5 program where they were still training pilots. The requirements were that you had to be 5 foot 6, which I was, and you had to weigh 115 pounds, which I didn’t. I weighed 105 pounds. So, to be prepared I rode my bike and bought 10 pounds of bananas. So by being a good Boy Scout and being prepared, I decided to eat them the night before the train ride to check in with the Navy…very bad mistake…” said Adickes, heartily laughing at the memory.

“All night I was throwing up and my roommate took me to the doctor who said there isn’t anything more indigestible than a lot of bananas. Bottom line: I didn’t make the train. In a way, the 10 pounds of bananas saved my life because if I had gotten into the Navy, I would have been sent to the battle of Iwo Jima, one of the fiercest and bloodiest fighting of the Pacific War, where not many G.I. survived.”

Clearly the universe and any divine entity knew to preserve Adickes for his fate of his height and weight would not stop him from creating momentous work. Shortly after the famous banana blunder, Adickes joined the air corps which sent him to Paris. This would change the trajectory of this legendary artist for the rest of his life. He had always painted, even noting that at 14 years old, he created oil paintings of Frank Sinatra that he still has to this day. His love of painting was sparked yet again due to the luminous sights and captivating sounds of the city of lights, knowing that after his service he would return. Everything was marvelous from the look of the French women to the sound of the language…”, said Adickes. “I just fell in love with Paris and the inspiration it gave me.”

When the war was over, Adickes had two years and six months on his G.I. bill. So Adickes went to the Kansas City Art Institute where he stayed for six months before hopping over the ocean to Paris. He visited the embassy to review the various schools he could enroll in and found the famous Académie Fernand Léger where he spent the next two years studying art “The best part of being at that school wasn’t just the classes but being in Paris itself alongside the other students. One of them became my very best friend. His name was Herbert Mears.” Knowing our city’s history, Mears was one of Houston’s most active and visible figures in the emerging art scene of the 1950s and 1960s.

Adickes remembers calling Mears up and asking him to come to Houston to open an art school with him. Mears was on the next flight. Only living in New York and Paris, the tropical climate to the treacherous cockroaches were a bit alarming to Mears but perhaps nothing was as startling as one of the staple cuisines of Houston. “One of the first meals I took him to when he arrived was a Tex-Mex restaurant. I remember him saying this is not food! What is this place?” chuckled Adickes. “He was used to eating French food so this was something bizarre to him but he became a Tex-Mex guy over time.”

Mears became one of his partners in crime art wise in a blossoming arts scene in Houston. Capitalizing on their Paris training and cultivating it for their new home base,

Adickes and Mears started building on this old wooden structure on Truxillo Street and named it the Studio of the Contemporary Arts. This school took on several formations before Mears and Adickes turned more into their skill sets and artistic practices. Shortly after, Adickes turned to expanding his myriad of mediums by delving into sculpture. Over the years, the fantastical quality of his work caught the attention of noted developer Joe Russo, who helped construct the 36 story Lyric Center in downtown Houston.

Noted as one of Adickes’ favorite pieces, Virtuoso is a 36-foot-tall, 21-ton outdoor concrete sculptural group installed in 1983 paying homage to music, dance and performing arts with a gigantic cello being played by a virtuoso who is invisible except for his head and hands. Behind the sculpture, includes a life-sized trio of abstract musicians including a violinist, bass, and flute player accompanying the giant cellist.

One cannot mention Adickes without noting the sculptural fixture of Sam Houston, the world’s tallest statue of an American hero, in the city of Huntsville, where Adickes was born and raised. He created this monument to the man who still inspires Texans to reach great heights.

Started in early 1992, the 67-foot tall, over-30-ton steel-and-concrete colossus consists of 10-foot sections, each containing five layers of concrete reinforced with steel straps with the outside layer including a fiberglass mesh. Entombed inside the giant head is the statue’s cement mixer – it died on the final day of construction – and the colossus was dedicated on October 22, 1994.

Installed in 2008, one of Adickes most notable works includes the Lone Star State version of Mount Rushmore at a notorious Houston hot spot for bottlenecked traffic, which Adickes calls “Mount Rushhour”. Gargantuan busts of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Sam Houston, and Stephen Austin give morning commuters something to look at as they slowly migrate into downtown from the northwest. Across the bases it is labeled: “A Tribute to American Statesmanship”. It’s fitting that Adickes made a career of augmenting larger than life historical figures within his favorite city, which all seemed to echo back to his early days in Europe including two encounters of the legendary side of art.

As we drew to the end of our time at the warehouse, I asked if he remembered any particular humorous moments with famous artists. His inclusion in Pablo Picasso’s massive birthday party, attended by over 5,000 people, was a memory that came to mind. “I remember they built a wooden coral for bull fights for the party…”, stated Adickes. “I snuck under the bleachers with my camera while Picasso and his family were sitting about twelve feet up. So I took a picture looking up which was a shot up his nose,” chuckled Adickes.

In the same breath, Adickes told us about his memory of the mystical Salvador Dalí. Upon arriving at a beach in the fishing village of Port Lligat, Spain, Adickes recognized the artist and asked if he knew where the public beach was. “Dalí answered, no no…please use my private beach.

Look for two eggs and a piano.” Adickes adds. “So I went about fifteen feet along the trail and it was covered in chicken feathers. Down in the alcove was a piano half in the water and two 8-foot sculptural eggs made of plaster.” The eggs and the piano were set pieces for the Orson Welles-narrated film Soft Self-Portrait of Salvador Dalí. “Later, I saw Dali getting into one of the eggs and coming out with his swimsuit in hand… so I’m one of the few people that saw Salvador Dalí’s wienie…” exclaimed Adickes with a laugh. Fitting it was for us to conclude with these stories, all tying together the masters and makers of history both in the flesh and immortalized in concrete.