Published: May 14, 2008 08:35 am            

Golden age

Spirits of Commerce and Industry to adorn new Fed building

NORMAN, Okla. — You’ve come a long way, baby.

In 1921, renowned American sculptor Henry Hering designed two relief sculptures — the Spirits of Commerce and Industry — to adorn the front of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s headquarters building. The sculptures, each rising two stories in height, were the building’s defining features for those entering the bank, historians say.

When the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s new headquarters opens July 1 at 1 Memorial Drive in Kansas City, visitors once again will see the Spirits, as they pass between the two, three-dimensional sculptures based on Hering’s designs. They were created by Indiana artist Tuck Langland and cast at The Crucible in Norman.

“We are thrilled with it — it turned out just as I’d hoped,” said Federal Reserve Bank President and Chief Operating Officer Thomas Hoenig.

Hoenig (pronounced Hawn-ig), Langland and representatives of The Crucible met Tuesday afternoon at the foundry on the corner of Jones Avenue and Tonhawa Street, to view the 12-foot-tall Spirits of Commerce and Industry, and to decide on the color of patina — the surface coating created by the use of heat and various chemical compounds.

Hoenig said he first met with Langland last June. “We did some research and learned Tuck Langland was well-known as a student of Henry Hering,” he said.

“We found him and talked to him. We were excited and he was excited and it was a good match,” Hoenig said.

Langland has been a professional sculptor for more than 40 years, and has public sculptures throughout the world and in the collections of museums including the British Museum in London and the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. He is a professor emeritus at Indiana University in South Bend, where he taught from 1971 to 2003.

Langland said The Crucible has proven a perfect foundry for many of his works.

He credits the craftsmanship of The Crucible employees.

“There are very skilled workers here. They fuss and get it right — I love these guys,” he said.

Langland said he just finished touring eight foundries in the Northwest, including Montana, Illinois, Washington and Iowa.

“There are about 200 foundries in the country. This one is right up there with the best of them,” Langland said.

“The sculpture business is booming,” even as the price of clay has risen from $2 to $5 a pound, he said.

Langland said he estimates that 15,000 to 30,000 public monuments have been created in the U.S. over the past 10 years.

“We’re producing more sculptures than any civilization at any time in history,” Langland said. “This is the golden age of sculpture.”

The Spirit of Industry holds a sheaf of wheat and a distaff, representing agriculture and manufacturing. Commerce, meanwhile, wears a coat of mail to signify security and holds a torch of progress as well as the caduceus of Mercury, the god of commerce.

The sculptures are made of silicon bronze, the metal used for hardware on ocean-going ships, Langland said. The bronze is 10 times as resistant as regular metal, meaning the Spirits will be here “20 to 30,000 years from now,” he said.

Langland called Crucible metalworker Scott Adams “a magician.”

Adams will go to Kansas City to install the Spirits at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s new headquarters at 1 Memorial Drive. The sculptures are scheduled for delivery and installation in early June.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s 1,000 employees will be invited outside to attend the unveiling, Hoenig said.

The sculptures will frame the entrance of the new bank building. The Spirits will be placed upon granite foundations, with fountains of water flowing from their bases, he said.

“This will bring the tradition of the bank we left to the new bank. It’s what we wanted to accomplish from the beginning. This accomplished that goal,” Hoenig said.

The bank began moving from 925 Grand Blvd. — the oldest headquarters in the Federal Reserve System — into its new headquarters in February. The sculptures are the last key pieces to be installed at the new facility prior to a June 12 banking industry open house, to which all Oklahoma bankers are invited.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City is one of 12 regional banks in the Federal Reserve System, with responsibilities that include participating in setting national monetary policy, supervising and regulating commercial banks and bank holding companies, serving as the bank for the U.S. Government and for commercial banks and providing other payments services to depository institutions.

Hoenig directs Federal Reserve activities in the Tenth Federal Reserve District — an area that includes Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wyoming, the northern half of New Mexico and the western third of Missouri. He is also a member of the Federal Reserve System’s Open Market Committee, the key body with authority over monetary policy.

Hoenig was the keynote speaker at a Rotary Club meeting in Oklahoma City prior to the meeting at The Crucible. Others gathering at the foundry included Chad Wilkerson, assistant vice president economist and branch executive at Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City; Diane Raley, vice president and public information officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City; and Oklahoma City resident Steve Agee, board member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

“I’m very pleased they liked what they saw,” said Steve White, director of operations at The Crucible. “We’ve worked really hard on these pieces and are very honored to do a job that will be placed outside the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

“Tuck has dedicated his life to his art and to be able to work with that caliber artist is a personal and professional pleasure,” White said.



Tom Blakey writes for the Norman (Okla.) Transcript.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.