Waldine Tauch, Coppini's protégé, exchanges letters with UT President Rainey. She asks ͞"Did you find it yet?" The "it" is the Victims heroic now missing for over two decades. Rainey writes her back, almost immediately, saying he has been busy but will make every effort to look for the Coppini donated statuary. That was the last [...]
The Littlefield Fountain, unveiled in 1933, is a monument by Italian-born sculptor Pompeo Coppini, located at The University of Texas at Austin. UT and Coppini came to loggerheads over design disputes with UT architect, Paul Cret and others. Between UT's loss of Coppini's 24 piece statuary and the fountain that was redesigned without Coppini’s approval, [...]
March 4, 1928 American Statesman article that says someone found "10 busts" in the 3rd floor of Old Main. It doesn’t say who found them nor does it name what is found. It also says nothing about the other 14 pieces (statues, heroic busts). We can find no other mention of the 24 item statuary [...]
The UT Cactus yearbook runs a four page section on the Coppini gift, the Victims heroic and the exhibition.
We believe most of the donated items are exhibited in the Education Building (now Sutton).
Students from the Longhorn Magazine stumble upon numerous large crates in the basement of Old Main. Upon learning that they contain artworks donated by Coppini, they demand to have them exhibited. It appears that the statuary and the Victims heroic were stored in the Chemistry Building, in 1918, and later, on the third floor of [...]
Coppini is readying to relocate to Chicago where he might have a better chance of being hired for more substantial projects that pay better than San Antonio. He offers to donate some 24 works of art including 6 heroic statues, several heroic busts and numerous portrait busts to UT. All 24 pieces are shipped to [...]
The Victims heroic is in Coppini’s studio in San Antonio.
Coppini decides to go ahead and create a 10 foot tall plaster cast for exhibition at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. Prior to shipping, Coppini puts out a notice to the world that the heroic will be on display at his studio in San Antonio for three days. Some of the survivors come as [...]
On October 17, 1900, William Randolph Hearst launched a New York Times promotion to raise money for victims of the 1900 Storm at the Galveston Orphan’s Bazaar which took place at the Waldorf Astoria. Coppini came to the attention of NY and Texas socialites with his winning entry of an early maquette design to commemorate [...]