Sculpting the American Dream : Gratitude for Artistic Freedom in U.S. Unites Creators of Commemorative Exhibit

One, the son of a German butcher, pulled himself up by his bootstraps, and turned the family slaughterhouse into an artist’s studio. Another abandoned his “suffocated” life in Russia, where he was a coin designer for the government mint. A third is a noted Japanese artist fulfilling a 5-year-old wish to paint the ultimate portrait of New York City.

No matter how different their backgrounds, each of the artists who gathered in Los Angeles on Sunday to unveil the official Liberty Commemorative Art Series of 16 sculptures said they shared something dear: Their faith in artistic freedom in the United States and their gratitude for the chance to express it.

The series, commissioned by a private company for the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island Foundation, will be displayed on the island on the Fourth of July when the renovated statue is rededicated. The backers are seeking a permanent home for the originals on the island, and say limited editions of the works will be sold in bronze or paper.

Works Depict Ethnic Groups

Each bas-relief sculpture depicts one of the major ethnic groups who streamed into this country through Ellis Island. A painting by Hiro Yamagata depicts July’s ceremony with brilliant color exploding over New York City.

While each artist was chosen in part because he or she belongs to an ethnic group that landed on New York City’s Ellis Island, none seemed closer to the triumphs and tragedies of the immigrant than Russian sculptor Alex Shagin.

The excitement of the moment nearly overcame Shagin, who mingled with big-name admirers including former Los Angeles Raiders’ star Lyle Alzado, Shannon Reed of the TV show “Falcon Crest” and Anne-Marie Johnson of “What’s Happening Now!” at chic Bocca Restaurant on Melrose Avenue.

“I feel truly like a 7-year-old boy growing up all in one minute!” he cried, his voice rising.

Shagin, now of Los Angeles, said it was the dying dream of his grandmother that he flee Russia to join relatives who had settled on the East Coast in the huge immigration wave of the the 1920s.

‘It Was a Dream’

“It was a dream, and sometimes it seemed it was an impossible dream, about a reunion with our people who came before us,” Shagin said sadly. “One generation passed away before we were reunited in America.”

A designer of commemorative coins for the Leningrad mint, Shagin helped create the Apollo-Soyuz coins and Russian Olympic coins before emigrating seven years ago.

His Liberty sculpture of a Slavic man fiddling, with brow furrowed in concentration, is titled svoboda, a Russian word that means liberty and freedom.

“This--the Statue of Liberty--is the biggest symbol of all for me, an artist of Russian extraction,” he said. “In Russia, the propaganda prevents people from even thinking about such universal symbols as freedom and happiness. Everything, from birth, is the state.”

For Don Wiegand, the dream began in Chesterfield, Mo., where his family made sausages with recipes handed down by master sausage-makers from the old country. His great-grandparents emigrated to the United States from Germany.

Now an award-winning bust sculptor, Wiegand said he “started out with nothing,” putting himself through art school as a butcher. Today, the old family slaughterhouse in Chesterfield is his studio.

‘You Can Do It’

“I had to work on my own to get what I wanted from the ground up, and that’s the best thing about this country--that you can do it,” he said. “People have asked me what the statue means to me, and that’s it.”

Hiro Yamagata, of Los Angeles, is still awaiting part of his dream. One wish was to paint New York City. That city, he said, represents “all of America” to him.

His color poster of New York, in full fireworks regalia, has already attracted an offer of $200,000 from a private company. Yamagata, internationally known for his silk screens, turned it down and hopes to display the work in a museum.

“My painting is showing the biggest, brightest, like United States,” he said.

The other dream is to become an American citizen, a wish he said is about a year away.