On this corner in Metro Vancouver…
The city of New Westminster saw the unveiling on October 4 of a three-dimensional representation of a 1940 photograph which was taken at the same street corner where the statue will be situated. It is called Wait for Me, Daddy. The newspaper photographer was Claude P. Detloff.
Wait For Me, Daddy. 1940: Claude P. Dettloff, Vancouver Daily Province. Archives# CVA LP-109.
Pictured are five-year-old Warren “Whitey” Bernard and his parents Bernice and Jack Bernard, as the family was about to be separated on October 1, 1940. When asked about the photo, Dettloff later told family that “he knew what he had even before he printed the picture.” Father and son were reunited in 1945.
Father and son reunited. 1945: Vancouver Province Newspaper
The city of New Westminster, the oldest city on Canada’s west coast, commissioned Canadian sculptors Veronica and Edwin Dam De Nogales* to recreate this moment in bronze.
On October 1, 1940, Dettloff was photographing the British Columbian Regiment [Duke of Connaught’s Own Rifles] march down 8th Street enroute to battle overseas. In a random moment, Dettloff snapped a young boy, Whitey Bernard, escape his mother’s grasp and run towards his father marching off to war. Wait for Me Daddy became an enduring symbol of Canada’s WWII effort. The photo appeared on the cover of Life Magazine, was displayed in every school in BC during the war, was showcased in the Canadian war bond fundraising campaign with Whitey Bernard on tour, is the 2nd most requested photograph in the National Archives and is amongst the 30 most popular photographs in the world. – From http://waitformedaddy.com/monument/
I haven’t been out to see and shoot the monument yet, and the photos available online at “press time” aren’t of the best quality.
The Royal Canadian Mint has struck a new $2 coin commemorating the original event (click image for more info)
Canada Post has created a stamp commemorating the event – photo Elaine Yong, Global News. Click for story.
While in the other corner…
An unofficial work which was quickly taken down has been replaced by yet another unofficial, unsanctioned, uncommissioned public artwork.
In early September someone erected, no pun intended, this statue in an otherwise unassuming little corner off an industrial road overlooking a rapid-transit station:
Which, as you might imagine, caused some flurry of news cameras and editor’s concerns about how much to reveal.
“The statue was not a piece of City commissioned artwork and consequently it has been removed,” explained city spokesperson Sara Couper to Global News.
The site was previously home to a bronze Christopher Columbus commemorative statue, installed in 1986. The statue was moved to the Italian Garden in Hastings Park 10 years ago.
And, this being Vancouver, there was a change.org petition to bring it back, with 2,634 signatures. The city has not responded.
Click on image for story by Lindsay William-Ross, in VancityBuzz.com
The city of Vancouver has removed a statue which had replaced a naked red devil art installation on an empty pedestal at a park plaza at Clark Drive and Grandview Highway.
The statue, a penguin sporting a bow tie, was erected Tuesday and is the second piece of non city commissioned art to be taken down off that pedestal, after the city last month removed a statue of a lusty Lucifer that could be seen from the SkyTrain. – Vancouver Sun, October 1 2014
PUBLIC ART PRIVATE VIEWS 