George Segal's The Holocaust

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, November 13, 2008

The San Francisco Arts Commission was alerted Wednesday morning to the vandalism of The Holocaust, 1982 by George Segal. The artwork — consisting of 11 life-size figures cast in bronze, painted white, and arranged behind a barbed-wire fence — is a powerful memorial to the victims of the Holocaust located in the grove of trees across from the entrance of the Legion of Honor. This is the second time in as many months that the sculpture and its accompanying marble plaques have been defaced by vandals. The Arts Commission is working closely with sculpture conservators to restore the artwork, however it is a costly (approximately $5,000 to $6,000) and time consuming project. We were able to significantly diminish the appearance of the most egregious damage to the artwork on-site Wednesday afternoon, however further intervention in still needed. The artwork was commissioned by the Mayor’s Committee for a Memorial to the Six Million Victims of the Holocaust and was given as a gift to the City in 1984.