Renzi sculpture saved from fire, tagged with graffiti, gets a new home. Where’s it going?

A 288-square-foot terra cotta sculpture by noted Fresno artist Clement Renzi survived a fire that destroyed a former bank building in central Fresno, only to be vandalized with graffiti.

Now undergoing restoration, Renzi’s “A Day in the Park” may ultimately gain a new home in the future terminal expansion at Fresno Yosemite International Airport under a resolution approved Thursday by the Fresno City Council.

The bas-relief sculpture, comprised of multiple clay tiles, has been donated to the city by Stephen Fagbule, who owned the Fagbule Glass House on Shields Avenue east of Blackstone Avenue.

The sculpture was created in 1981 and covered part of the building’s north wall facing Shields Avenue. The building, originally a bank and later a banquet hall and event center, was largely destroyed by a fire in late January 2023, sparking efforts to salvage the artwork to make way for the demolition of the structure.

The City Council formally accepted Fagbule’s donation of the sculpture on Thursday. Fresno City Attorney Andrew Janz told The Fresno Bee on Friday that the pieces are being stored in a city warehouse. He said the “best estimate is under $50,000” for the city to move, store and restore the sculpture but emphasized that a final price tag is not yet known.

The sculpture depicts children and adults playing and enjoying trees in a park setting. It is one of dozens of pieces of public art created by Renzi and on display in Fresno and throughout California.

Notable Renzi creations in Fresno include his 1964 sculpture, “The Visit,” and 1973’s “The Yokuts Man,” both on Fulton Street in downtown Fresno; a 1983 statue of boxer Young Corbett III in front of Selland Arena on M Street; his 1968 sculpture, “Brotherhood of Man,” on the M Street side of Courthouse Park; “The New Book,” a 1964 piece at the Fresno County Library’s main branch on Mariposa Street; 1970’s “Christ the Healer” at Saint Agnes Medical Center in northeast Fresno, and many others.

Renzi was born in 1925 in the Tulare County community of Farmersville. According to a biography on clementrenzi.org, he served in the U.S. Navy in the closing days of World War II, then attended the University of California, Berkeley. He later studied at the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria, and in New York before he and his wife, singer and teacher Dorothy Renzi, returned to California and settled in Fresno. The artist died in 2009.

“Clement Renzi was a renowned local American sculptor whose figurative works depict people, humanist relationships, animals and birds and have been popular with collectors in more than 60 public venues, including many here in the Central Valley,” the City Council’s resolution approved Thursday states.

The resolution directs the administration of Mayor Jerry Dyer “to find a suitable location at the Fresno Yosemite International Airport” to display the sculpture, “with preference being within the new terminal.” The terminal expansion project is expected to be completed in the fall of 2025.

“The Fresno Yosemite International Airport promotes a welcoming environment for passengers to relax and enjoy the artistic talents found in California’s rich and culturally diverse Central Valley,” the resolution states, “and maintains a vibrant arts and culture program designed to enrich traveler experience through contemporary art, music performances, and other cultural activities.”

Art is an important component of plans for the terminal expansion, which will create a new concourse and other facilities to accommodate the airport’s growth. “We’ll have a number of locations in the terminal expansion for art,” Henry Thompson, the city’s airports director, told the City Council in a June 5 meeting. “Some of that will be for murals, some will be for paintings, sculptures, etc. We haven’t narrowed that down exactly yet.”

The airport site for “A Day in the Park” isn’t necessarily a done deal. “We are evaluating that (City Council) request and the feasibility of it being incorporated as part of the airport’s public art program in the terminal expansion,” Vikkie Calderon, an airport spokesperson, told The Fresno Bee on Friday. “A final decision has not been made at this time.”

While the council’s direction is new, Calderon added, “terminal design is complete and construction is just beginning” on the expansion project.

If no suitable space for the Renzi piece can be found at the airport, the council’s resolution directs the administration to return to the council to discuss other placement options.

An outdoor piece created by Fresno artist Caleb Duarte is due to be installed this summer on the elevator shaft of the airport’s parking structure, facing the main terminal building.

The design of Duarte’s piece is reminiscent of the mural it faces on the exterior of the terminal building, Raymond Rice’s 1962 work, “Sky and Ground.” That piece, crafted from Venetian glass, is a 128-foot mural The Fresno Bee once described as “an abstract approach to the aeronautical theme.”