Explore the Sale and move to Seattle of this artwork.
Lewis E. Carpenter, an English teacher in Poprad originally from Issaquah, Washington, found the hollow monumental statue lying in a scrapyard with a homeless man living inside it. The Lenin statue was waiting to be cut up and sold for the price of the bronze. Carpenter had met and befriended Venkov in an earlier visit to Czechoslovakia. Carpenter's initial interest in buying the statue was to preserve it for its historic and artistic merit. Later he intended to use it to attract customers for an ethnic Slovak restaurant he wanted to open in Issaquah.In close collaboration with a local journalist and good friend, Tomáš Fülöpp, Carpenter approached Poprad city officials, saying that despite its current unpopularity, the statue was still a work of art worth preserving, and offered to buy it for US$13,000 (equivalent to US$30,000 in 2022). After bureaucratic hurdles, he signed a contract with the Mayor of Poprad on March 16, 1993. The Mayor then began to reconsider, and asked the City Council to vote on the sale. After voting to approve it, the Poprad council reconsidered and asked the Slovak Ministry of Culture for its blessing, which was given four months later.After final approval to buy and move the statue out of the country, Carpenter consulted with both Venkov and the architect who had overseen the original casting of the bronze before deciding to cut the statue into three pieces and ship it 1,500 miles (2,400 km) to Rotterdam, and then on to the United States, all of which ultimately cost US$40,000 (equivalent to US$80,000 in 2022). Carpenter financed much of that by mortgaging his home. The statue arrived in Issaquah in August 1993, and Carpenter planned to install it in front of a Slovak restaurant. He died in a car collision in February 1994, during public debates on whether to display the statue in Issaquah that ended in rejection from the suburb's residents. After Carpenter's death, his family planned to sell the statue to a Fremont foundry to be melted down and repurposed into a new piece. The foundry's founder, Peter Bevis, sought instead to display the statue in Fremont, and agreed to have the Fremont Chamber of Commerce hold the statue in trust for 5 years or until a buyer was found. The statue was unveiled on June 3, 1995, at the corner of Evanston Avenue North and North 34th Street on private property, one block south of the Fremont Rocket, another artistic Fremont attraction.The owners moved the statue two blocks north to the intersection of Fremont Place North, North 36th Street and Evanston Avenue North in 1996, on a property with commercial retail spaces occupied by a Taco del Mar and a gelato shop at the time. The new location is three blocks west of the Fremont Troll, a Fremont art installation under the Aurora Bridge.The Carpenter family continues to seek a buyer for the statue. As of 2015, the asking price was US$250,000, up from the 1996 price of US$150,000 (equivalent to US$280,000 in 2022).
Slovak Seattle Fremont Rocket foundry Fremont Slovak Ministry of Culture gelato Fremont Troll Issaquah, Washington Aurora Bridge Rotterdam Taco del Mar Poprad