Robert Arneson; Sculptor of Controversial Moscone Work

Sculptor Robert Arneson, whose whimsical depictions poked fun at high culture but whose tribute to a slain San Francisco mayor became mired in controversy, died Monday of cancer at his home in Benicia in Northern California.

For many years Arneson, 62, taught ceramics at UC Davis and helped shape that now prominent art department.

In 1981 his statue of slain San Francisco Mayor George Moscone was banished from the new George Moscone Convention Center because of the phrases and symbols on the pedestal describing the mayor’s life and death. It also contained graphic reminders of Moscone’s 1978 assassination: an impression of a revolver and bullets, a streak of red glaze suggesting blood, an outline of a body and more.

The 1,000-pound ceramic smiling head atop the controversial pedestal was later purchased by an Oakland collector and toured the country for several years before being moved into the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park last February.

Arneson was born in Benicia in 1930 and received undergraduate and graduate degrees from the College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland and from Mills College.

At UC Davis in the early 1960s, he found a metaphor in sculpting ceramic toilets, later creating images of ticky-tacky houses, specifically “Alice,” where he lived with his family in Davis.

“He always said an artist has only 10 good years,” said David Gilhooly, Arneson’s studio assistant from 1964 to 1967 and a clay artist in Oregon. “His 10 good years, I always felt, were 1965 to 1975,” a period when Arneson created many self-portraits in various forms.

He had retired from UC Davis last year.

Arneson is survived by his wife, artist Sandra Shannonhouse, and six children.