David Adickes hopes to literally cement his artistic legacy by installing 43 massive busts somewhere in Texas. But he’s running out of time.
Arrayed across a gravel lot outside the studio stood another 42 massive presidential heads—the series runs from George Washington through Barack Obama—which, to motorists taking an on-ramp to Interstate 10, suddenly appear on the horizon like the moai of Easter Island. The project is the culmination of a long career that took Adickes from a modest upbringing in Huntsville to galleries in France and Japan before landing him back in Texas, where he became a pillar of the Houston art scene. His distinctive paintings, with their mysterious elongated figures, can be found in museums and private collections across the state. His monumental sculptures, such as the 67-foot-high Sam Houston statue, in Huntsville, and the similarly towering Stephen F. Austin, in Brazoria County, polarize public opinion but are impossible to ignore.