Sherlock Holmes
Date created: 2015
Sponsor: Purchased with 1% CIP funds through the Edmond Visual Arts Commission.
Sherlock Holmes is the creation of author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930). There is a website, sherlockholmes.com devoted to the merchandising of over 100 Holmes items, such as books, badges, key chains, mugs, etc.Quoting from this website, we learn that “The author, (Sir) Arthur Conan-Doyle wrote his first Holmes story, A Study In Scarlet, in 1886. Sherlock Holmes, a fictitious character was based on a real man, Dr Joseph Bell, a renown forensic scientist at Edinburgh University whom Conan-Doyle studied under. Conan-Doyle wrote 56 self contained short stories & 4 novels (60 adventures in total) The collection is known as The Cannon.
“The first Sherlock Holmes film was produced in 1900. In 1939 the novels were developed as a series of films staring Basil Rathbone, establishing the trademark deerstalker, pipe & spyglass as a global visual icon.”
This lifesized bronze sculpture stands in the three-story lobby atrium of the Public Safety Center in Edmond. The sculpture can be seen through the glass wall of this lobby. Holmes is dressed in his signature trench coat, cape and cap, holding a pipe in his right hand, and a magnifying glass in his right. He is “spying” on the 50-year time capsule resting on a bench nearby. A bronze plaque at his feet entitles the sculpture “Investigating Edmond’s History.” This is a sculpture by Jane DeDecker.