Staff Report
City Council
Item No. 5.E
Meeting Date: July 9, 2025
From: Anne V. Ambrose, Assistant City Manager
Title: Acceptance of the Donation of a Sculpture - "Ozone, by Craig French - and Authorization to Use Art in Public Places Funds for the Installation RECOMMENDATION:
To approve the Public Arts Commission recommendation to accept a donation of a sculpture titled “Ozone, by Craig French, and authorize the use of Art in Public Places funds for the installation.
BACKGROUND:
At the March 11, 2025 Public Arts Commission Meeting, Chair Liebelt presented an item for the commission to consider acceptance of a donation of a sculpture by artist Craig French titled “Ozone”. “Ozone” is a stainless-steel sculpture with a current offering price of $19,500.
Chair Liebelt was contacted by a representative from A Gallery in Palm Desert regarding a sculpture one of their clients wished to donate to the City. The piece, titled “Ozone” is a stainless-steel sculpture by the artist Craig French. The current offering price for the sculpture is $19,500. From his website at www.craigfrench.com, Craig French is a neo- Constructivist sculptor, whose brilliant, lyrical wall pieces have gained an international audience. Cast resins, acrylics, sheet metals, rare woods, and glass are laboriously cut, lathed, and polished into fanciful shapes - then joined and intertwined into arresting color- texture combinations. The works conjure a multitude of Southern California moods and attitudes. From the freewheeling zest of beach boys to the contemplative aura of Asian meditation, each work speaks to a paradigm particularly rooted in the Pacific Rim. These multi-media works rest, dance, play, spin, and sing to create an abstract language inflected by many accents. Yet they all are unified by overarching themes of aesthetic optimism, joy, and a duty to fine craftsmanship. French is in the line of the pioneering Russian Constructivists of the early 20th century who sought to elevate the abstract language of machine-age forms into art works of deep social and spiritual significance. Within their output were the first abstract wall sculptures known to Modern art. Picasso, too, would take up the mode - though more playfully - further blurring the boundary between painting and sculpture.
French’s most contemporary predecessor in the field of abstract wall sculpture is the great Frank Stella whose wall works routinely fetch six figures and are found in major museums around the world.
DISCUSSION:
The Commission discussed the item again on May 13, 2025. Chair Liebelt had subsequent conversations with the library director at the Cathedral City Library about possible placement of the sculpture in the library. The library staff are supportive of the idea of locating the sculpture in the main rotunda of the library. At the commission’s June 10, 2025 meeting, the commission voted to recommend acceptance of the donation of the sculpture and is requesting approval of up to $5,000 from the Art in Public Places fund for construction of a base and installation at the library.
FISCAL IMPACT:
DESCRIPTION GENERAL
LEDGER
ACCOUNT
CODES
PROJECT
CODE
AMOUNT ONE TIME or
ONGOING
2025-2026 Art in Public
Places Fund
231-000-000-
000-3310-3311 $5,000 One Time
2024-2025 Total $5,000
FIVE-YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN:
Goal B: Community Investment
ATTACHMENTS:
1. Image - Ozone, by Craig French