| Statue of Woodrow Wilson | |
|---|---|
| Artist | Pompeo Coppini |
| Year | 1933 (1933) |
| Medium | Bronze sculpture |
| Subject | Woodrow Wilson |
| Location | Austin, Texas, United States |
| Owner | University of Texas at Austin |
Woodrow Wilson is a sculpture depicting theAmerican president of the same name byPompeo Coppini. The sculpture was commissioned in 1919 byGeorge W. Littlefield to be included in theLittlefield Fountain on the campus of theUniversity of Texas at Austin. It was installed on the university's South Mall inAustin, Texas from 1933 until its removal in 2015.
In 1919, University of Texas regentGeorge W. Littlefield donated funds to pay for the construction of a "Memorial Gateway" at the south entrance to the university's campus that would honor theConfederate dead from theCivil War. He hiredSan Antonio-based Italian-born sculptorPompeo Coppini to design the monument, which was to include a number of statues of notable figures from the history of Texas and the American South. The memorial was ultimately redesigned as theLittlefield Fountain and instead dedicated to the university's students and alumni who had died in the Great War (now known asWorld War I).[1]
As part of the memorial project, in the 1920s Coppini sculpted bronze statues ofWoodrow Wilson and five Texan and Confederate notables selected by Littlefield, which he intended to display around the fountain. However, as construction on the memorial proceeded in the early 1930s, campus architectPaul Cret decided to instead install the six statues along the university's South Mall, where they were placed in 1933 as the construction of the fountain complex was completed.[1]
Beginning in 2015 and accelerating in 2017, a national controversy grew over the prominent positions of monuments and memorials to the Confederacy in many public spaces across the United States, and particularly in the American South.[2] In this context, the statues of Confederate notables along the university's South Mall that Coppini had designed for the Littlefield Fountain attracted increased public criticism.
In March 2015, UT's student government passed a resolution calling for the removal of Coppini's statue ofJefferson Davis from the South Mall.[3] That August, the university in fact removed the statues of both Davis and Wilson from the Mall and placed them in storage, despite a lawsuit from the Texas Division of theSons of Confederate Veterans, which failed to persuade theTexas Supreme Court to block the plan.[4][5][6][7]
In August 2015, UT PresidentGregory L. Fenves announced that the statue of Woodrow Wilson will be reinstalled at a location on campus, which has yet to be determined. Fenves said the statue was originally removed to maintain symmetry on the mall along with the Davis statue's removal.[8]
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