Drive down any major highway in America, especially those of you who are hardy road-trippers. As you close in on your city, it doesn’t matter the size really, you can see it approach before you are there. Of course, the bigger the city, the grander the monuments. Architecture is not necessarily relegated to homes, skyscrapers, office buildings, libraries, and such, however. While the architectural styles that you might find traveling through your daily neighborhoods and business districts are consistent in stylings throughout time, other structures have been built that rival those. Look at towers such as the San Jacinto Monument in LaPorte, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Texas, or the Tower of the Americas in San Antonio.
Beyond the built environment that we encounter mindlessly regularly, architecture serves as artwork along our daily landscape. Dotting the highways and byways, along with those high-rises and neighborhoods, are large monuments that merge architecture and art. We get greeted by monuments, roadside attractions, and more. One such notable Texas artist of these monumental structures is the inimitable artist, David Adickes.
David Adickes standing outside his studio in front of his behemoth sculptures of Presidents Gerald Ford, George Washington, George W. Bush, and others.
Born in Huntsville in January of 1927, the famed Texas artist has given birth to several sculptures and structures throughout Texas. However, David got his start primarily as a painter, traveling to Europe in 1949 for school before returning to Texas just a few years later. Eventually, Adickes received his first large-scale commission in 1955. He was to paint a large mural for the Houston Club. That same fall, he was hired to teach at the University of Texas-Austin’s art department.
It wasn’t until 1983 that Adickes put a mark on the permanent landscape of Houston. After two decades of being a full-time instructor and painter, Adickes was commissioned for something slightly different, a monumental structure that would be displayed in downtown Houston. Virtuoso, a 36-foot steel and concrete statue featuring a giant cellist accompanied by a string trio (violinist, bass, and flute player), was installed on the outskirts of Houston’s Theater District. Three years later came the 20’x26’ sculpture Cornet. Now located along Galveston’s Strand, Cornet was designed to be a stage prop at the 1984 Louisiana World’s Exposition in New Orleans, since converted into a freestanding sculpture for a Galveston installation in 1986.
At 28-feet in height, this artwork has existed in multiple locations throughout Houston, it becomes a landmark wherever it stands
What may be Adickes’ most indelible mark on the Texas landscape was, however, “A Tribute to Courage” that came in 1994. Created in memory of Houston’s namesake, Sam Houston, and located in both Houston’s and Adickes’ home of Huntsville, the monument serves as a notable marker as you head into or out of Houston. Located 65 miles north of the metropolitan limits of Houston, the concrete and metal statue stands at 67-feet tall, atop a ten-foot-high Texas granite base. The monument, which weighs more than thirty tons is comprised of ten-foot sections – each containing five layers of concrete reinforced with steel traps. The exterior layers include a fiberglass mesh while, within Sam’s giant cranium, entombed inside is Adicke’s cement mixer. When it died on the final construction day, it was forever incorporated into the structure.
Visible to motorists, the Sam Houston monument can be seen for more than six miles along Interstate 45 and serves as a gateway to the region. The monument is located along Interstate 45 and is the ninth-tallest statue in the United States. Access to the statue is via the nearest Interstate exit, and then by following a parallel road behind the wooded park. There you will find a visitor’s center and gift shop, along with a trail and the monument.
In addition to Adickes’ other structures, visitors to the Houston area can find the “We *heart* Houston” statue, of which there are now multiple throughout the Houston area, statues of the Beatles, busts of each of the American presidents from George Washington to Barack Obama, a Stephen F. Austin monument in Brazoria County that rivals his Sam Houston statue, and numerous other designs and monuments found throughout Texas and beyond.
