Birth of a Dino

Foundry casts giant sculpture for museum

Lee Ferris photos/ Poughkeepsie Journal Genarow Guevara of Polich Art Works applies an oxidizing agent to the sculpture. Michael Anderson

With piercing eyes, a gaping mouth and bulging muscles, the dinosaur that has been living at Polich Art Works in Rock Tavern is an intimidating sight.

Fortunately, the beast is made of bronze.

The 7,000-pound, life-size statue of a Torosaurus latus, a dinosaur that lived more than 65 million years ago, was cast at the local foundry as part of a $500,000 project to create a dinosaur statue to set in front of the Yale Peabody Museum in New Haven, Conn.

The dinosaur will make a four-day appearance at Polich's own Yellowbird Gallery on Front Street in Newburgh before arriving at its final home on the Yale campus. This will be the beast's only local appearance.

Dick Polich, founder of Polich Art Works and owner of Yellowbird Gallery, said he was thrilled to work on the project, particularly since he is a Yalie.

"It's wonderful," he said.

Polich Art Works, which is known for casting works by such renowned artists as Frank Stella and Susan Wagner, was one of several foundries around the U.S. considered for the job.

"When I first was in touch, I hadn't even realized he was a Yale graduate," said Jane Pickering, Yale Peabody Museum deputy director. "It was a nice coincidence that they were the best foundry in the country for doing this sort of thing."

Group effort

Polich said about 90 percent of the foundry's 75 employees worked on the project, casting the beast in 30 pieces before welding them into one.

"Our goal is that no one can tell where it was put together," Polich said. "We are anonymous. We don't make it better, we don't make it worse."

The life-size model is 21 feet long and measures 12 feet high to the top of its frill, the plate-like protrusion on top of its head.

Polich Art Works patinist Genaro Guevara used oxidizing agents that reacted with the bronze to create the green and brown tones in the dinosaur's skin.

"The detail on the piece itself is very amazing," he said. "It was difficult working and trying to get it to ook like what the artist pictured it."

Artist and Yale Peabody Museum staff member Michael Anderson designed the creature.

"It's interesting sculpturally. It has horns like a bull, a beak like a bird and nostrils like a rhinoceros," Anderson said of the Torosaurus. "It's just wacky."

Anderson visited Polich Art Works Monday to oversee the final touches on the bronze's patina. For him, the bronze casting was the culmination of six years of work on the project.

Much of that time was spent researching how to build the dinosaur from the inside out — bones, muscles and skin.

He then created a life-sized clay model of the beast, which was used as the form for the bronze casting. Creating the skin in clay alone took six months.

"This has been an unbelievable experience for me," Anderson said. "Just incredible."

Torosaurus latus roamed the earth during the Cretaceous period about 66 million years ago. It is part of the same group of frilled and horned dinosaurs as the Triceratops, and was a herbivore.

The creature was named and described by Yale professor of paleontology O.C. Marsh in 1891. Marsh also identified dinosaurs such as the Tyrannosaurus Rex and Stegosaurus.

These more famous beasts were suggested to be the statue's subject, but in the end, the Torosaurus won out. The project was funded by a gift from 1956 Yale alumnus Stanford N. Phelps, his wife Elizabeth and their grandchildren.

"It's a real Yale dinosaur," Pickering said. "It's really appropriate to have outside of the museum."

The Torosaurus will be transported to the Yale Peabody Museum in mid-September and set on a large piece of granite. The statue will be covered until the dedication ceremony Oct. 22.

Alice Hunt can be reached at hunta@poughkeepsiejournal.com.

How to craft a giant

To make the clay model: