5 MAJOR SCULPTURES ARE ADDED TO TOWN CENTER

Five major sculptural works--including pieces by international masters Joan Miro and Carl Milles--were dedicated Thursday at the new Center Tower, a 21-story office building next to the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

All five sculptures, including those by noted American artists George Rickey and Tony Smith, were purchased by the Center Tower, which is a development of the C.J. Segerstrom & Sons firm.

With the Center Tower sculptures, the South Coast Plaza Town Center--the Segerstrom-planned office, hotel and entertainment sector--now has 20 major “public art” pieces, including works by two other world-famed sculptors, Isamu Noguchi and Henry Moore.

The sculptures that were dedicated Thursday:

- “Oiseau,” a 1981 bronze work by the Spanish-born Miro, who died in 1983 and was regarded as one of the 20th Century’s most renowned artists.

- “Jonah and the Whale” (1918) and “Sunglitter” (1932), bronze fountains by Milles, who died in 1955 and was considered Sweden’s most celebrated sculptor.

- “Four Lines Oblique Gyratory: Square IV,” a 1973 stainless steel mobile by Rickey.

- “Fermi,” a 1975 marble work by Smith, who died in 1980.

Still to be installed in the main entry of the Orange County Performing Arts Center, which opens in October, 1986, is Richard Lippold’s “Fire Bird,” a 60-foot-high steel-and-aluminum sculpture.

“While it takes visionary artists to bring forth the potential through the creative process, it takes dedicated patrons--such as represented by the bold commitments of the Segerstrom family--to enable these pursuits to be placed before the public,” said dedication speaker William Otton, director of the Laguna Beach Museum of Art, which operates a satellite facility in the South Coast Plaza mall.

The Lippold project was commissioned by the Segerstrom family, which has also donated the Town Center sites for both the Center and the South Coast Repertory Theatre. The family’s $6-million donation to the Center is the largest made to that campaign.

Costs Not Disclosed

The Segerstrom firm has declined to disclose the costs of any works acquired or commissioned by the firm or its Town Center associates. But Noguchi’s six-piece “California Scenario” sculpture garden--installed in 1981-82 in an office courtyard--is reported to have cost the Segerstroms and the Prudential Insurance Co. about $2 million.

A Center support group, the Angels of the Arts, last year announced that Moore’s “Reclining Figure” cost the group about $400,000 to purchase. The 1981 bronze sculpture, now temporarily placed near an office entry, is to be installed at the Performing Arts Center.

Other speakers at Thursday’s dedication were Henry Segerstrom, the family firm’s managing partner; West Coast Consul Generals Joaquin Munoz del Castillo of Spain and Margaretta Hegardt of Sweden, and Patti-Gene Sampson, president of the Orange County Arts Alliance.