America's Monument Maker: Eugene Daub

Eugene Daub at work in his San Pedro, Calif., studio.

The first thing you notice about Eugene Daub's studio is that there is no empty space. Not a shelf, not a windowsill, not a corner of the floor that hasn't been claimed by something: a small maquette of his Thomas Jefferson, a study head from the Joe Hill piece, the mockup figures from his Corps of Discovery group in Kansas City. In one corner sits the clay bust of Amelia Earhart, the one that didn't win him the Capitol commission. The studio occupies an old warehouse on the edge of San Pedro's port district, and it has the feeling of a place that has been continuously inhabited by someone who cannot stop making things, who can't stop, period — who tried to retire and failed.

Daub, 83, has been a sculptor for roughly five decades. In that time he has completed more than 40 major public monuments, and his work is held in the collections of the British Museum, the Smithsonian, and the Helsinki Art Museum. Most conspicuous among his achievements: a statue of Rosa Parks in the National Statuary Hall of the United States Capitol. But his work hasn't stayed confined to the world's great institutions. A few miles from where we're sitting stands his Harry Bridges monument on the waterfront. A Joe Hill plaque marks Fifth Street. A bronze Phineas Banning watches over the Banning's Landing Community Center in Wilmington...

Read the full story at San Pedro Today