Rizzo statue creator says take it down if a problem

Sculptor Zenos Frudakis spent five years of his life toiling over the massive bronze statue of controversial former Mayor Frank Rizzo. It is the sculpture that set his career trajectory.

But if taking it down is good for the city, Frudakis said it’s the right thing to do.

“I want what’s best,” he said. “Even if it’s for a very large minority than they should consider moving it.”

If anyone asked Frudakis – and they haven’t – his solution would be to re-appropriate the statue, “perhaps put some children of all races near-by. That is what you can do with art to show how things change and how things contrast.” He would prefer that the statue not be torn down.

The irony of it all is that Frudakis, 66, who owns a gallery in Glenside, Montgomery County, has perhaps been commissioned to do more sculptors of African-Americans — from Martin Luther King Jr. to K. Leroy Irvis to Samuel L. Evans, to name a few — than perhaps any sculptor in the United States.

When a bust was required for Adolpho A. Birch, Jr., the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, Frudakis was commissioned to do it.

When Nina Simone’s hometown of Tyron, N.C. wanted a statue of the legendary singer, Frudakis was commissioned to do it.

And when the American Foundation of Negro Affairs wanted a bust of legendary founder Samuel L. Evans, they, too, turned to Frudakis.

Frudakis moved here from Gary, Ind. for college and graduate school in the mid 1970s, and is fully aware of Rizzo’s ugly history of racial insensitivity. He is well read, listing the works of Malcolm X and Eldridge Cleaver as reading material.

Knowing the controversial nature of Rizzo, Frudakis hesitated to do the work at first, but he was a struggling artist needing to put a work in his portfolio that could be a signature piece, so he accepted the commission.

And while he is not a fan of Rizzo’s, he does not view him with anywhere near the scorn he holds for Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general at the heart of the white supremacists’ march last week in Charlottesville, Va., whose statue was removed, or President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly defended the violent marchers and tried to draw an equivalence between them and those who stood against them.

“I don’t’ think it [statue] should be equated to traitors and southern generals. He didn’t rebel against the United States,” Frudakis said.

“I did it also because I believe in redemption,” he said. “I heard that just before he died he was visiting an African-American church and talking to children. That was different for him. Perhaps he was changing.”

The Rizzo sculpture launched his career. He has since done busts of King from Chester to Australia, sometimes using his own money to fund the work.

The sculpture has led to full-body sculpting of famous athletes such as golfer Arnold Palmer as well as the statues of Phillies Hall-of-Famers Richie Ashburn, Robin Roberts, Steve Carlton and Mike Schmidt at Citizens Bank Park.

But he also turned down commissions to do presidents Ronald Reagan and both George Bush.

Might he do Trump if ever asked?

“Never,” Frudakis said. “I’m in a better position to tell people ‘no’ now. I think Trump is a criminally insane sociopath. I don’t want to be associated with him.”