Art Changing Hands Among the Moneychangers.

The Strib has the story about the loss of a landmark St. Paul public artwork, but not the sizzle of what it looks like.

You'll have to go to Start Seeing Art's photostream (from which this image is swiped) to get a fuller sense of the monumental George Sugarman sculpture that changed hands one too many times.

First National Bank (now U.S. Bank) commissioned it, then disavowed ownership after selling the building, leaving the current owner -- a real-estate investment firm -- free to dispose of it.

The new concept for marketing the building is more historic character-driven, so...

[C]hunks of the Sugarman were hauled off this week for restoration and reinstallation in Austin, Texas. "This is just wrong, so wrong," said Christine Podas Larson, founder of Public Art St. Paul, which raised $20,000 in an unsuccessful effort to keep the work in Minnesota.

I did some work for U.S. Bank, starting in the days not long after the art buyer regime left Dodge in the early '90s. As then CEO Jack Grundhofer put it, the previous execs got lucky in the bond market, thought they were geniuses and nearly tanked the company. But not before they amassed a pretty impressive modernist art collection that was still peppered throughout lobbies and hallways of the corporate offices.

I imagine much of it has been dispersed to private collections by now.

Of course, people with more money than taste have always acquired art (and books by the yard) to signify success. In Europe, many of its great cultural treasures were privately commissioned and ultimately saved by the wealthy for the public to enjoy. It's just too bad for St. Paulites, their future enjoyment of this piece will also involve travel to another land.

Comments

[Kevin D. Hendricks]

Thanks for the info and the link. I ran downtown tonight to see for myself, and yep, it's halfway gone. That was kind of a surprise.