THE GULLS OF SALT LAKE CITY - 1964
100 x individual sculptures of gulls, each with a 4-ft wingspan and weighing only 8lbs each, plus one sculpture of a cricket, affixed to three 120-ft. stainless-steel poles “held in tension between the roof and a sunken garden below street level.” [1] The birds formed a screen at the front of 'U' shaped Prudential building and were visible from inside, through the windows of the five-story atrium.
THE GULLS RISING UP THROUGH THE APERTURE AT THE FRON OF PREREIRA’S PRUDENTIAL BUILDING
THE SCULPTED BIRDS WERE VISIBLE ON ALL FLOORS
INSTALLED AT THE PRUDENTIAL’S FRONT FACE, AS THE SUN ILLUMINATES THEIR WINGS
A GULL TAKEN OUT OF STORAGE, C. 2023
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Prudential Federal Savings and Loan Association
115 S. Main St, Salt Lake City, UT 84111
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February 1964
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William L. Pereira & Associates
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Bronze, electro-deposited on nickel, stainless-steel
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120-ft. tall
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$110,000
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Prudential Federal Savings & Loan
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The Prudential building was demolished in 2014 to make way for a new performing arts center, the Dore Eccles Theater. Since then, 65-seagull sculptures have been in storage in the care of the Public Art Program of the Salt Lake City Corporation, which plans to reinstall them at, or nearby, the Eccles Theater. Detached from their poles and garnished with guano after fifty years of exposure to the elements, they require cleaning.
Two of the gull sculptures sat on the sign for “Pappy's Pawn,” 1480 S. State Street, Salt Lake City, c. 1990-2000. The owner, Mr. Pappadakis, purchased them at a foreclosure auction for the bank c. 1987. [1]
The remaining 33-birds have been missing since at least 2001 when a sidewalk was built over the Prudential building’s 70 ft. x 21 ft. sunken garden and the basement and first-floor sections of the sculpture were removed.
[1] Sean P. Means, “Who Owns Art? The Answer Isn't Always Simple,” The Salt Lake Tribune, June 06, 2014.
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All black & white photographs, right: Photographer: Julius Shulman, © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10).
Color photograph, right: Photographer: Renato Olmedo-Gonzalez
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Van Sant received this commission while studying for his MFA at the Los Angeles County Art Institute (now Otis Art Institute), when he won a competition held among graduate art students in Los Angeles and vicinity. It was made for the REIU’s new building in Hollywood. The raw canvas visible in the photograph’s upper right edge and the unfinished appearance of some of the figures suggest that it may record a sketch or a grisaille stage in the work. Alternatively, unresolved aspects of the work may result from student inexperience.
[1] Sean P. Means, “As Salt Lake building comes down, 'The Gulls' wait to fly again,” Salt Lake Tribune, June 29/2014
