Venus Observed

When it comes to honoring the pioneer fathers, few U.S. cities can outdo Salem (pop. 43,140), capital of Oregon. A brawny woodsman stands atop the capitol dome; pioneers flank the capitol entrance, a circuit rider sits astride a horse on the capitol grounds, and more pioneers stare bold-eyed from murals on the rotunda walls. Three weeks ago the city got a chance to put up still another tribute to its past, but this time it was a figure that looked strikingly different from the hardy frontiersmen. The statue: a hippy bronze nude by France's great Pierre Auguste Renoir.

The statue was to be erected in front of the new Marion County courthouse as a bequest from Carroll L. Moores, an obscure Salem janitor who died in 1938. Janitor Moores left his life's savings (chiefly real-estate holdings now worth $34,000) in trust for "a monument . . . in memory of early Oregon pioneers." Last year the trustee chose a committee (among its members: Director Thomas Colt of the Portland Art Museum, Pietro Belluschi, dean of architecture at M.I.T.), gave it free rein to find a suitable work. Renoir's Venus Victorieuse, the committee thought, was "universal" in spirit, a true masterpiece and a bargain. Price, from a Manhattan dealer: $18,000.

Salem citizens took one look at a newspaper photograph and erupted with rage. "Fat and naked," cried the Salem Capital Journal. Mayor Al Loucks's phone was busy ten hours a day with protests. "What we want," said one member of the Lions, "is a statue of a pioneer woman in a gingham dress and a sunbonnet . . not this trash." Said Oswald West, 80, a former governor of Oregon: "The pioneer mothers would rise up out of their graves and pin a horse blanket around the hussy." "The pioneers," snapped Frank Jenkins, editor of the Klamath Falls Herald & News, "liked 'em slimmer."

Venus had only a few champions. Architect Belluschi told Salem that she was "probably one of the greatest statues of the last 200 years." Said Museum Director Colt: She is "representative of woman as the mother of the race."

But the anti-Venus uproar was too loud. Last week Salem heard that the committee had withdrawn their Venus before she even got to town. But Colt was still faithful: he hoped some rich patron would buy Salem's scorned Venus for Portland's museum, where, he was sure, her rich beauty would be appreciated.

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