Project California Condors

"Project California Condor was my personal initiative and contribution, carried out between 1978 and 1984. It was intended to educate, and advocate the preservation of this endangered species, which was then at the brink of extinction. As I began the project, about thirty of the birds were left in the wild. When the project was done, none were left in the open range, but a captive breeding program was begun, which turned out to be very successful. Today, numerous groups of captive-bred California condors have been released in order to re-establish wild populations under controlled circumstances.

I did eight life-size sculptures of these gigantic birds, each featuring a wing span of about ten feet. The material is black plastic laminate, which can be reproduced in bronze upon demand. I myself have never seen a California condor, but I studied the Andean condor in depth at the zoo in Mexico City. These two species are very similar, except for the head and coloring. For stylistic reasons, I took some liberties with details of the wings.

These sculptures were exhibited, in groups ranging from two to eight birds at a time, in more than thirty locations, primarily in the northeast of the country. Some of the venues were art galleries or art museums, others were educational or science-oriented institutions, such as the Smithsonian Institution at the National Zoological Park in Washington, DC, and also the National Soaring Museum in Elmira, NY. As the drawings show, the captive condors were a lively community, but for the exhibition, which could have been a wake for the species, solemnity was in order." –Erwin Hauer, Still Facing Inifity