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There is a new sculpture coming to Atherton’s town center. At its July 17 meeting, the Atherton City Council approved a 10-year loan of a large, stainless steel sculpture entitled “Celebration.”
The sculpture, which depicts three 7-foot-tall stainless steel figures celebrating in a circle, is being loaned to the town by Atherton resident Valerie Gardner. Her father, the late artist Norman Gardner, created the piece in 2006.
“It (the sculpture) feels happy to me,” said Vice Mayor Elizabeth Lewis. “The people holding hands, it just feels joyous.”
According to an artist narrative about the piece provided to Atherton staff by Valerie Gardner, the sculpture was originally commissioned for the entrance to a private day school in Palo Alto, where it has been installed for the last 18 years.
The artist, Norman Gardner, frequently summered in Atherton to be near his children and grandchildren. Celebration is the last in a series of a half dozen landscape scale sculptures that Norman Gardner produced in his lifetime, and is the only one that was fabricated entirely from stainless steel.
“He and I spent a lot of time working together on numerous projects, including this sculpture project, which was something of a collaboration,” wrote Valerie Gardner in the artist narrative.
The loan will cost the city about $55,000 over the course of the 10-year installation. The transportation and installation of the piece are estimated to cost about $5,000, and the insurance for the piece (which is valued at $250,000) will cost the town about $5,000 on an annual basis. As the piece will be installed near the library, council members said that they intended that money to install and insure the piece would come from the town’s share of donated library funds.
Other council members said that they are pleased with how the piece looks, and are excited to see it installed at the Town Center.
“I like it here, we only have one other art piece, which is the frog,” said Council member Rick DeGolia, referring to the large bronze sculpture of a toad reading a book that sits near the Atherton library. “I’d like another art piece.”
