The sculpture was restored after vandalism damage in September
The Angel of Harmony is back at the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis.
The 11-foot stainless-steel sculpture was reinstalled on the grounds of the cathedral basilica on May 20, about eight months after it was damaged by a man tampering with construction equipment on Sept. 17. Police found a boom lift had been dropped onto the sculpture, knocking it off its pedestal, and arrested a 35-year-old man in connection with the vandalism.
On May 20, Acme Erectors pulled up in front of the cathedral basilica with the sculpture safely secured on a flatbed trailer. A crane lifted the 1,200-pound sculpture, hoisted it upright and set it down onto the base of African black granite, which was also replaced a couple weeks before. Sculptor Wiktor Szostalo welded the sculpture to small pegs on the base and put the finishing touches on with his grinder.
A rededication of the statue is being planned for the coming weeks.
The sculpture depicts an angel with African-American features and large wind-chime wings. In front of the angel are three children with Hispanic, Asian and European features playing a hymn of peace on different instruments.
Szostalo spent about four and a half months carefully reshaping and welding the sculpture back to its original glory at his studio in Granite City, Illinois. The head of the boy with the drum had been nearly torn off, and his torso was deformed. The legs of the sitting girl were also twisted. The angel’s wings were damaged, bent badly out of shape, with more than 100 wind chimes dented and sticking out in all directions. Szostalo also repaired the twisted steel base of the sculpture.
While Szostalo mainly focused on restoring the sculpture to its original form, he also took the opportunity to tweak a few things. He sealed the top of the pan flute, which should allow it to make sound when wind blows through, he said. He also replaced the small dove hanging from the bell the girl holds, which had been broken off several years prior.
“It’s carrying actually an olive branch, which the original one didn’t have,” he said. “I thought, well, it seemed that peace was a little more assured then (in 1999), so why not just add that little touch, keeping up with the times?”
The sculpture was originally installed at the cathedral basilica in June 1999, just a few months after St. John Paul II visited the church and near the turn of the new millennium.
The base of the sculpture includes quotes from the Beatitudes in the Gospel of Matthew, St. John Paul II and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Then-Auxiliary Bishop Edward K. Braxton had suggested the statue to Archbishop Justin F. Rigali; it was a gift from Adelaide Schlafly in memory of her late husband, Daniel.
The statue emphasizes a “theme of harmony, peace and racial justice,” Bishop Braxton said at the time. “The African-American features will depart from traditional images of angels with European features in order to emphasize the universality of God’s love for all people.”
Szostalo left a few small smudges of paint from the vandalism on the finished sculpture in remembrance of its damage and repair. “It’s like little scars,” he said. The sculpture is made to last, but the marks show that “it will incur some wounds, but that makes it stronger, it doesn’t kill us. It’s a symbol that not everything is always perfect, but life goes on, and the sculpture is still here.”
