Statue of Peace, sculpture Beniamino Bufano
Photo, Copyright c.1960s, Chris Carlsson, All Rights reserved.

Back in 2022, I came across a Benny Bufano original Madonna sculpture in San Francisco’s Fort Mason park (see Visualizing Birth through Benny Bufano’s “Madonna”). Recently, I was driving out near San Francisco State University on Brotherhood Way and came across Bufano’s Statue of Peace, which in the 1960s was erected at the San Francisco Airport and then relocated to Brotherhood Way in 2014. I did not take a picture and am using Chris Carlsson’s from the Benny Bufano on Public Art Page at the Found SF website.

As in the case of Bufano’s Madonna sculpture written about here in 2022, the artist’s Statue of Peace provides pregnant and other viewers with a calming image of a mother, whose body appears to enfold one or more colorful children. Her bust protrudes slightly towards the top of the sculpture beneath her glowing head and face. She appears serene and powerful, reminding mothers-to-be of their own capacities as they approach labor and birth.

At this time of war in the United States, with our government unlawfully attacking Iran and other countries, Bufano’s work stands out as a reminder of how our people need to stand up for peace. In this quote from the Found SF website on Bufano’s work, we see that the artist wanted democracies to stand up for peace, and he saw the need as connected to a reminder of protecting the women and children off our world. But it is up to the people at this point since we are witnessing the collapse of our entire leadership and governmental infrastructure during late stage capitalism:

Bufano was a very strong voice for social change in America. He produced art that advocated resistance to oppression. “I sculptured ‘Peace’ in the form of a projectile, to express the idea that if peace is to be preserved today it must be enforced peace-enforced by the democracies against Fascist barbarism. Modern warfare, which involves the bombing of women and children, has no counterpart in a peace interpreted by the conventional motif of olive branches and doves.” (O’Connor 1973).

Birth is something that every human goes through; thus, it serves as a commonality connecting us all across race, class, age, gender, etc. and reminding us of our shared humanity. Identity politics have fractured us. At this time we need to look to universals, and mothers/children/parenting are a universal that reminds us of life, which we can all relate to.