New Statue of Martin Luther King Jr. Draws Criticisms Over Its Proportions

He rises 11 feet high, cast in bronze, carved in metaphor. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. frequently used metaphor as an orator, and a new statue of him in Winter Park, Fla., does the same, with shoes, left arm and head all slightly enlarged.

His body language suggests that he is at ease, holding a thick book in one hand and waving with the other. Even his blazer and pants have a relaxed quality to them, with realistic-looking wrinkles.

Winter Park, a suburb of Orlando, last month celebrated the unveiling of the $500,000 installation, which was to be the crowning glory of its 23-acre Martin Luther King Jr. Park.

But Dr. King’s likeness is being contested here, following a pattern of earlier memorials of him, including the one on the National Mall in Washington.

Judging any work of art is subjective, but this is magnified when it is a statue of one of the best-known Americans of the 20th century and, in this case, of a Black man amid a broader landscape of white founding fathers, Civil War generals and philanthropists.

Some critics have pointed to the statue’s disproportionate head, shoes and arms. Dr. King’s shoes were made slightly larger, to evoke the big shoes he had to fill; his left arm was bulked up, to underscore the weight and power of the untitled book he holds; and his head was slightly enlarged, to be better seen, according to the sculptor, Andrew Luy of Huntsville, Ala.

A few want to fix the statue somehow, and at least one said it should be redone.

“It looks awkward,” Jonathan Blount, a founder of Essence Magazine and a resident of Orlando, said at a City Commission meeting last month. He later called it a “caricature.”

The city, whose population has about 8 percent Black residents, is standing behind the artist and his work, which was licensed by Dr. King’s estate.

The city will add a small sign nearby to explain the exaggerations, an idea that Mr. Luy said he supported.

“Art evokes some emotion in people, and it has for eternity,” Mr. Luy said. “It is very subjective, so I was prepared for positive and or negative comments about it.”

The statue stands on a two-foot high circular black granite plinth, with four granite markers at the foot of the plinth engraved with “Equality,” “Love,” “Courage” and “Freedom.”

The plinth is surrounded by concentric seating and low walls inscribed with the names of Black families whose homes the city seized through eminent domain to build the park in the 1950s.

The entire installation is called “The Ripple” because Dr. King’s teachings and his influence have rippled throughout history, Mr. Luy said.

“What’s even more challenging is if you take a more obscure public figure or historical figure that you don’t have photos of, because you can only create the sculpture based on maybe illustrations or grainy photographs maybe of that person,” he said.

His work was informed by close interaction with a committee of residents and civic leaders. The design evolved through emails, phone and video calls. It was a shared vision shaped by the community, he said.

When a selection committee member commented that Dr. King “had big shoes to fill,” a collective decision was made to reflect that symbolism in the statue, so he enlarged Dr. King’s shoes.

It was unclear, though, whose shoes Dr. King was filling. Mr. Luy said he had been adamant to ensure that Dr. King was not holding a specific book.

“I wanted the viewer to kind of create in their own mind what that book is,” he said.

He said that the statue was never was intended to be a hyperrealistic representation.

“Where is the art in that, right?” he asked. “If someone took a 3-D scan of you and made it, it would look exactly like you. And that’s great, if you wanted, like an action figure of yourself. But, you, know, I feel like it kind of takes away from the creative process of the artist.”

The desire for hyperrealism in art goes back to the era before photography, according to Kirk Savage, an art history professor at the University of Pittsburgh and the author of “Monument Wars.”

Since the 19th century, Professor Savage said, there has been an idea that only someone who knew the person being represented would be able to create a true likeness.

“This is not simply about M.L.K.,” he said. “This issue has come up a lot in portrait statuary. The question of likeness has always been somewhat fraught.”

There is a sense among many people that there has to be a fidelity to a representation of Dr. King, said Erika Doss, a professor of art history at the University of Texas at Dallas.

“So the man was 5 feet 7 inches, and this is a nine-foot sculpture,” said Professor Doss, who is the author of “Memorial Mania.” “When you go big like that, I don’t think you can do caricature.”

Mr. Luy said that public art invited conversation and critique and that he embraced that dialogue.

“At the same time, I stand by the intent and integrity of this piece,” he said.

In response to concerns raised at the City Commission meeting, Sheila DeCiccio, the mayor of Winter Park, said that “maybe it didn’t come out the way everybody had hoped it would.”

“Don’t know what we can do at this point,” she said. “It was a very big investment.

Winter Park was founded in the late 1800s as a getaway for wealthy Northerners, and newly freed Black families moved there to work for them. The city recently dedicated the Shady Park Pioneer Memorial, with four busts that honor Black residents who were pivotal in the city’s founding and its development.

The King family, through a representative, declined to comment on the statue.

“Dr. King is too great a man for anyone to diminish him by any means,” said Mary Daniels, a local Black historian, community leader and longtime Winter Park resident who frequents the park.