"Venice Journal; Dying Sculptor Races Against Time and Vandals ... The architectural centerpiece of the Venice High School campus is a giant iron cage inside which can be glimpsed an old man clambering laboriously over a temporary scaffold ... The cage, recently built, is a monument to the persistence of the man, William Van Orden, a sculptor who has given the last 10 years of his life to restoring the statue in the cage ... The 7-foot-tall statue of Venus rising from the sea, accompanied by two male figures, was sculptured by a Venice High School teacher, Harry Winebrenner, in the 1920's, and a 16-year-old student, Myrna Williams, was his model"--New York Times, June 12, 1989. Photograph caption reads: "It's almost like a movie script rescue, with Myrna Loy the star: Around 1930, a high school student posed for a statue at Venice High School in Mar Vista. Myrna Loy went on to bigger and better things, but the actress' namesake suffered hard times: Students painted her class colors and dynamited her in 1979, blowing off her head and arms. An incensed sculptor, William Van Orden, without asking permission, started repairing the statue. The school liked the idea and the price: He's already donated 200 hours to fixing Myrna and the two lesser statues on the work, for nothing." Photograph dated Oct. 19, 1980.
Type
image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;36 x 29 cm. Photographic prints
Van Orden, William Loy, Myrna,--1905-1993--Statues Sculpture--California--Los Angeles Venice (Los Angeles, Calif.) Los Angeles Herald-Examiner photographs Herald-Examiner Collection photographs Venice High School (Los Angeles, Calif.)
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