''Eugene Skinner'' is an outdoor

bronze sculpture Bronze is the most popular metal for Casting (metalworking), cast metal sculptures; a cast bronze sculpture is often called simply "a bronze". It can be used for statues, singly or in groups, reliefs, and small statuettes and figurines, as w ...

of the founder of the city named after him, installed outside the

Eugene Public Library The Eugene Public Library is a municipal public library in Eugene, Oregon, United States. It has been in four different buildings since 1898. History In 1898, a group of women founded the Fortnightly Club and opened a private reading room in ...

Eugene, Oregon Eugene ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is located at the southern end of the Willamette Valley, near the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about east of the Oregon Coast. As of the 2020 United States Census, Eu ...

, in the United States. The life-sized statue was created by local artist Jim Carpenter, who estimated Skinner's height to be around five feet, four inches, based on the distance between the butt and trigger of the rifle which appeared in photographs of the pioneer. Skinner is depicted sitting with a hat in his hand; the sculpture rests on a basalt block, quarried from

Skinner Butte Skinner Butte (often mistakenly called Skinner's Butte) is a prominent hill on the north edge of downtown Eugene, Oregon, near the Willamette River. A local landmark, it honors city founder Eugene Skinner and is the site of the municipal ...

. Carpenter has said of the statue:

I kind of thought that the big, standing, fist-in-the-air hero kind of thing was maybe a little too much. This is more modest. He is sitting there holding his hat and looking off in the direction of Skinner Butte. There is some public art that is not accessible or not very friendly. It seems to get ignored or walked past or spray-painted. I thought this would be a nice scale for kids. They could sit down next to him.

Reception

''The Register-Guard'' Bob Keefer said, "With its informal sitting pose, that statue has a certain anti-heroic quality."

References

Bronze sculptures in Oregon Monuments and memorials in Eugene, Oregon Outdoor sculptures in Eugene, Oregon Sculptures of men in Oregon Statues in Eugene, Oregon {{Oregon-sculpture-stub

Reception

See also

References