I was always curious about the artistic panels placed on the Comerica 411 Lafayette Building. Now, I know that Robert Youngman, the noted sculptor, created these panels and I have the photos of him creating them. However, local artist Pablo Davis claims to be the one who designed these panels.
Here is the quote from his site:
Pablo designed these panels in the mid-1950's for what was once the Manufacturers' Bank [[and is now the Comerica Bank) at the intersection of Lafayette and Cass in downtown Detroit. The design was inspired by Aztec and Mayan sculpture and was his reaction to the proliferation of glass and steel buildings. In these designs he undertook to merge monumental Latin American sculpture with contemporary, abstract, expressionist art through the use of new, large-scale, prefabricated concrete technologies. He used a sandcasting technique and worked with a concrete manufacturer in Flint to produce these sculptures for the building's architects. To him, the panels evoke the feeling of jazz music and make a statement of character, rugged elegance, and distinctiveness that bring relief from the typical reflective surfaces so typical everywhere else. For Pablo, it brings a sense of joy, warmth and "human-ness" to this part of Detroit.
So, did Pablo Davis work on these panels WITH Robert Youngman OR is he claiming he is the one who created them? I have photos of Youngman hand carving all these panels by himself soI want to set the record straight.
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