Renowned Maryland Sculptor Selected to Create Veterans Memorial in Silver Spring

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Contact: Gary Stith, 301-565-7300 or Steve Simon, 301-217-6534
For Immediate Release: March 3, 1999

Renowned Maryland Sculptor Selected to
Create Veterans Memorial in Silver Spring

Renowned Maryland sculptor Antonio T. "Toby" Mendez -- perhaps best known locally for his creation of the Thurgood Marshall Memorial in Annapolis -- has been selected as the artist to help create a lasting memorial to veterans of all wars, for the planned Veterans Plaza portion of the Downtown Silver Spring project.

Veterans Plaza at Town Square, slated to be a 45,000-square-foot park at Fenton Street and Ellsworth Drive, will be a key component of the Downtown Silver Spring redevelopment project. It will be located adjacent to a new civic building that will be constructed by Montgomery County.

"We're tremendously excited to have an artist of Toby Mendez's caliber and vision, to create what we know will be a fitting tribute to our veterans, including our local heroes who served in the 29th Infantry Division in Normandy, during World War II," said Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan. "I know we all anxiously await the exciting development of this memorial and the Veterans Plaza park, just as we look forward to the reopening of our historic Silver Theatre as the new home of the American Film Institute and to completion of the overall Downtown Silver Spring complex itself."

Mendez will work collaboratively on the Veterans Plaza memorial park project with the Downtown Silver Spring development team's architects, RTKL Associates, Inc., and its landscape architect, James Urban. He was chosen from a field of 65 artists as part of a national search effort, conducted by a seven-member Silver Spring Veterans Memorial committee. Jack Hewitt, a lifelong Silver Spring resident and former member of the Montgomery County Planning Board, who served during World War II as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 29th Infantry Division, chaired the committee.

"Silver Spring's veterans memorial will serve to honor men and women who have served in all wars and will help link the past to the future," said Hewitt. "The memorial is seen as an integral part of the rebirth of Silver Spring's downtown area, and Mr. Mendez's experience with this type of project will ensure that it becomes a treasured part of our history."

"This project has the three attributes that I feel are most important in public art," said Mendez. "It honors a group, in the veterans, that has provided for and defended our freedom; secondly, it will educate the viewer about that contribution; and, finally, it has the potential to inclusively inspire the public by sharing this great story."

Mendez, 35, a Maryland resident, has completed more than 30 portrait commissions and several memorials, including two bronze panels for the United States Navy Memorial in Washington, D.C., a full-figure memorial honoring Erin Carey for the Mercersburg Academy in Mercersburg, Pa., and eight coin designs for the U.S. Mint.

In addition to the Thurgood Marshall Memorial, his large-scale monuments includ "A Tribute to the Oyster Tonger, A Chesapeake Waterman," for Annmarie Gardens in Calvert County, Maryland, and a life-size grouping of five bronze children for the Children's Hospital of the King's Daughter in Norfolk, Virginia.

He is the creator of two works honoring heroic figures for the Texas Rangers baseball team. The first is an eight-foot bronze statue of Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan and the second is a seven-foot piece depicting Tom Vandergriff, former mayor of Arlington, Texas and now a Texas judge. Both figures are part of The Ballpark in Arlington, home of the Texas Rangers.

Mendez is a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago who has worked in Madrid, Spain, assisting Spanish sculptor Jose Cobo, and in Burbank, California, as a sculptor on the team of Oscar and Emmy award-winning make-up artist John Chambers. Mendez began sculpting at age 14, when he was accepted to the Maryland Center of the Arts. Since 1988, he has operated out of his studios in Knoxville, Maryland. Mendez currently serves on the Governor's Commission on Artistic Properties, which oversees the State of Maryland's Art Collection.

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