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Basque Studies Program Newsletter · Issue
59, 1999
Basque Art in Reno,
Nevada
by Carmelo Urza
Basque art, as defined for purposes of this article,
refers to public art created by Basques or public art which
reflects the image of Basques. Reno is fortunate to have
several important pieces: the National Basque Monument at
Rancho San Rafael, the Shepherd sculpture at John
Ascuaga’s Nugget, the Orreaga sculpture in the main
library at the University of Nevada, Reno, the Lertxundi
sculpture in front of City Hall, the triptych at the north
end of the main UNR library and a number of paintings,
sculptures and carvings at the Basque Studies Program
itself. This article will describe each in
turn.
Monuments to the Basques
By far the two largest art pieces are the National Basque
Monument and The Shepherd. Both represent the Basque
sheepherder and, through that occupational archetype, they
honor the Basque immigrant to the American West. Both are
major bronze sculptures by major artists. Besides these
similarities, however, they couldn’t be more
different.
The National Basque Monument was born as an idea in
1984 and was unveiled on August 27, 1989. It was proposed as
a public project, evolved over time, and enjoyed the
participation of many public and private organizations. The
official overarching organization in charge of the Monument
project was the Society for Basque Studies in America, which
worked in conjunction with a local committee in Reno. The
project was funded by public subscription, with significant
funding coming from official Basque entities (governments,
banks, etc.) from the Old World as well as significant
individual contributions in the New. The Monument stands
today at the northern edge of Rancho San Rafael, a 490-acre
regional park.
Perhaps typical of this type of project, there were a
few false starts before the project jelled. The committee
decided that the monument should represent some specific
aspect of the Basque presence in the United States. While
Basques had been involved in many occupations, their
strongest group reputation had been developed as
sheepherders in the West, and as a result, that archetype
was chosen to represent the whole. A dozen artists from the
United States and from Europe were invited to submit
proposals which would express this concept. Nine
proposalswere submitted, and three artists were selected to
submit maquettes. A panel of Reno-area artists and
cognoscenti made the final choice. Old World Basque artist
Nestor Basterretxea’s submission Bakardade/Solitude was
the winner. With a concrete project in hand, a brochure was
designed and fundraising started in earnest. So began the
controversy.
Those of us who were involved in the project were
soon to learn the diversity of the other players and of the
audience, and how they were to play a central role in the
project. Unwittingly, we had stumbled into a major breach of
who “the Basques” were and of how they wanted to
be viewed. As it turns out Nestor Basterrechea was a Basque
artist from the Basque Country whose work had long explored
Basque character and beauty. He was also a modern artist,
one of the vanguard in Europe. For the Old World supporters
of the Monument, the fact that he was from the Old Country
was an asset, for they would get to showcase one of their
own. Basterretxea’s status as a modern artist was also
beneficial on a different front, since the Basque Government
was anxious to project an international image of the Basque
Country as a modern place in which businesses should invest.
And indeed, the Basque Country is a very modern part of the
world, equipped with the latest technology, a first-rate
educational system and a highly qualified and sophisticated
labor force. Old World governmental entities were probably
not thrilled to have their culture presented on the world
stage in the archetype of a sheepherder. And yet, they
tempered their objections and provided important financial
support.
In the American West, however, the image of the
Basques which had been evolving for the last quarter century
emphasized the antiquity of the people (a possible remnant
of the original Cro-Magnon population of Europe), the
uniqueness of the language and other associations that set
the Basques apart from the rest of the world. The best known
Basque figure in the New World was that of the sheepherder
and indeed, many Basques in the American West currently hold
in common a herder ancestor, due to the historic realities
of employment opportunities that were available to early
immigrants. Most of those who had come to the U.S.
originated from isolated Old World farmhouses; they were
largely uneducated and had emigrated to the U.S. to herd
sheep as very young men. And yet, they spoke Basque and
embodied the cultural icons which had been collectively
selected as those that made the Basques different.
Furthermore, the last important wave of immigration ended in
the 60’s and so they represented, in a sense, the
authentic baserri-based culture of a former era, frozen in
time in the American West. They were precisely the group
which had been selected to be honored by the National Basque
Monument, and these Basques didn’t see themselves as
sophisticated Europeans.
The resulting controversy of this project was
probably no different than that of other public art
projects. Representational or figurative art went head to
head against abstract art, the modern against the
traditional. In fact, Basterrechea’s sculpture is
probably classified as postmodern in that it represents a
partial return towards realism. That is, it had an outside
referent - something “real,” the figure of a man,
although that figure was distorted or abstractly
represented.
To many supporters of the Monument, and to Basque
immigrants and former herders, the sculpture was not a
faithful reflection of themselves, a hard-working,
straightforward, uncomplicated people. Furthermore, they
argued, the figure of the sheepherder was a biblical icon,
and the Basques themselves an ancient people. Shouldn’t
traditional stories be related in traditional
styles?
For Nestor Basterretxea, and for others, the question
was not so simple. Basterretxea believed that the external
elements of dress were not the most important dimension of
the Basque sheepherder. Rather, Basterretxea found the
Basque essence in the sheepherder’s
character.
Sheepherding in the West was a tough, lonely
occupation, and it took a strong man to withstand the
hardships, unfathomable loneliness, dangers, and
deprivations. Furthermore, for the Basques, both physical
and psychological strength was a cornerstone of their
culture. Basterretxea attempted to externalize this essence
of strength in his Monument sculpture. Some supporters were
not bothered that the project was controversial. Indeed,
many found controversy to be a benefit. It was better to be
hotly debated than ignored. Nor did it bother them that the
sculpture was a difficult “read,” that is, that
its meaning was not easy or obvious to the casual viewer and
that it would require the onlooker’s personal
interpretation and involvement to understand the
message.
The debate raged during the fundraising stage and
echoes of the discussion have lasted a decade. However, even
among the most vocal detractors of the sculpture itself,
there was support for the project. People understood that
the project had developed momentum, and that it had the
potential to become a reality. Although they may have had
aesthetic differences, everyone understoood that
collectively they had an opportunity to make a major
artistic statement about the Basques in the United States.
For that reason, most of them set their personal differences
aside and supported the project. In return, the contributors
or those they wished to honor were memorialized on bronze
plaques at the site.
Fortuitously, for those who preferred a more literal
and representational sculpture, the 4th of August 1998 was a
happy day. For that was the date of the public unveiling of
The Shepherd, a seventeen-foot-tall bronze sculpture by
Douglas Van Howd, commissioned by John Ascuaga and his wife
Rose, owners of the Nugget Hotel and Casino in Sparks,
Nevada. Both are Basque Americans, and the sculpture was
commissioned, according to the news release, to “honor
their parents and all Basque immigrants who left their
homeland for opportunities in the American West,” as
well as the “way of life and indomitable spirit”
of Basque culture. “People don’t realize the
hardship they faced coming over here, not speaking a word of
English, going up in those hills,” Ascuaga said. The
August inauguration of The Shepherd was scheduled to
coincide with the opening of the Restaurante Orozko, the new
Basque and Mediterranean restaurant at the Nugget. The name
of the restaurant comes from the name of the village in the
Spanish Basque Country from whence John Ascuaga’s
father, Jose, originally emigrated in
1914.
Coincidentally, the Van Howd sculpture was one of the
finalists of the original competition for the National
Basque Monument. Van Howd has several public art pieces in
Reno, including the wolves at the entrance to the University
football stadium and the skier at the entrance to the
airport. Van Howd is highly regarded in the Reno area.
Little did anyone anticipate a decade earlier that we would
wind up enjoying both sculptures. Van Howd’s work is a
classic piece of realism which depicts a sheepherder picking
up a lamb to hide it from the elements under his open coat.
The figure is replete with all the accoutrements of a
herder, including a sheep hook, a hat, and a trusty dog by
his side. “This is a realistic version,” Van Howd
said, comparing his work to the Basterretxea sculpture.
“The spring winds we get here are pretty cold.
He’s pulling his coat up and he’s sheltering a
lamb under his coat.”
Zenbat Gara Dance Ensemble, from UNR, performed at
the unveiling. Many other local Basques attended as well
with a satisfied look on their faces, as if they had finally
gotten the sculpture they wanted. This sculpture is a
welcome addition to other Basque-related art projects in the
Truckee Meadows, and a welcome contrast to the modern
Basterretxea sculpture in Rancho San Rafael. Now, both sides
of the debate have “their” Basque
sculpture.
Other Works in Reno
Orreaga is the Basque name for the Pyrenean Valley known as
Roncesvalles in Spanish or Ronceveaux in French. It is also
the name of the sculpture in the lobby of the UNR library.
It commemorates the battle in which Basques attacked
Charlemagne’s rearguard early in the Ninth Century.
Roland, Charlemagne’s nephew and the captain of the
rearguard, was killed in that battle. His death inspired the
famous epic poem, “The Song of
Roland.”
Orreaga is a large oak sculpture that spans an area
eighteen feet high and ten feet wide. Although highly
abstract, the two-piece oak sculpture alludes to the
narrative of the battle. The lower piece is in the form of a
large U, suggesting the canyon walls trapping the forces of
the invading Franks. In the center, a complex oval structure
represents the doomed army of the invaders. An aggressively
shaped discoid hangs from the ceiling above and represents
the attacking Basques swooping down on them like the bird of
death. The author of Orreaga was Nestor Basterretxea, the
same artist who created the National Basque
Monument.
Path of Equilibrium is a piece created by Basque
artist Mikel Angel Lertxundi. It was installed in the summer
of l994 in front of Reno City Hall. Lertxundi used the main
elements of the earth for his materials: stone (granite from
Nevada), wood (oak from California) and iron. The 9 x 6 x
6-foot sculpture, in its composition and materials, is
designed to reflect the life processes of birth, life, and
death.
The offices of the Basque Studies Program contain
several pieces of original art, including a three-foot
bronze maquette of the original design of the National
Basque Monument (the final sculpture was modified from this
first version).
In 1990, Mikel Lertxundi held an exhibition of
original art at the University in Reno. After the show, he
donated one of the pieces to the Basque Studies Program. The
piece is called Orekaren bila-VIII (In Search of
Equilibrium-VIII) and is composed of three separate pieces,
one made of wood, the other of stone and the third of
iron.
On the staircase leading to the Basque Studies
Program, there is a triptych painted by Spanish artist
Enrique Linatza. The piece is entitled Buruauste (Puzzle),
and is composed of a series of squares which, in muralist
tradition, depict an epic scene taken from the journey of
the Basque immigrant traveling from the Old World to the
New.
The BSP also exhibits a number of tree trunks
decorated with original carvings by sheepherders. The
carvings are representative of the thousands of arborglyphs
throughout the American West carved by bored Basque
sheepherders who wanted to leave a human mark on an
otherwise lonely landscape.
If the samples of tree carvings in the BSP do not
satisfy your interests, you may go into the countryside
around Reno to see the living originals. There are a couple
of groves that can be accessed most of the year over dirt
roads on Peavine Mountain just north of Reno. For
instructions on how to reach them, please call the
Program.
Finally, there are three oil paintings by Virginia de
Rijk Chan in the Basque Studies Program. Virginia was the
Assistant Coordinator of the Program for many years and,
although she now lives in Amsterdam, she has painted
portraits of three individuals who have played prominent
roles in the Program: the late Jon Oñatibia, a
teacher of Basque dance, music and language; the late Jon
Bilbao, a bibliographer and collaborator at the BSP for 25
years; and William A. Douglass, founder and Director of the
BSP.
We invite you, the next time you are in Reno, to take
a few hours to visit some of the Basque art that can be
found in the area.
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