I have written about several statues in the Sculpture Garden behind the old Carnegie Library. Journeys of the Imagination (Put a little love in your art) , Gox #4 (My Art will go on), and the nearby Heritage Woman (Broken arts club). I have been trying to track down information on a cement sculpture by David Mast titled, “Righteousness Restored.”
Details were hard to come by, I reached out to my usual sources with little luck. But thanks to Pam R. at Fidelity Bank I was able to get enough information to put the story together.
The statue was commissioned by the Urban Renewal Agency. It would be erected at Union Station. At some point during the creation the URA was dismantled, and an unfinished lion sat and waited for help.
Help came in the form of the Downtown Lions Club. They helped complete the project and the lion was put in the garden behind was the original Carnegie Library, then the Omnisphere, and now home to Fidelity Bank. The statue was completed by Mast in 1981 and dedicated in 1982.
I could not find much information on the sculptor, David Mast. We know he was born in Ulysses, Kansas in 1954. He studied studio arts at Wichita State and began sculpting in 1977.
Mast later popped up with artist Barry Badgett. The two worked with kids at Buckner Elementary Performing Arts Elementary to create a ceramic block sculpture at the school
Check out some of Wichita’s other art pieces. How great our art
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