New Bedford seeks artists for Herman Melville statue

The City of New Bedford is moving forward with initial plans to memorialize one of the Bay State's most famed authors in its downtown historic district.

Last week marked 183 years since a young Herman Melville set sail from the Whaling City aboard the Acushnet on a working voyage that later inspired his magnum opus, "Moby Dick." Some traces of Melville remain in New Bedford, like a marker at the church pew where he worshipped, and there's already a memorial to his fictional creation — a statue of the white whale Moby Dick near the ferry piers.

But highlighting the author himself with a statue is "long overdue," Mayor Jonathan Mitchell said last week, announcing a call for applications from interested artists.

The mayor's office highlighted other recent artworks unveiled in New Bedford, such as statues of abolitionist Frederick Douglass and former Rep. Thomas Lopes.

"New Bedford is the setting for what is arguably the preeminent work of American literature. The novel has had a profound influence on artists the world over and on American culture itself. As it was until recently with Frederick Douglass, honoring Melville with a statue in New Bedford is long overdue," Mitchell said in a statement.

The city hasn't settled on a site for the Melville statue, spokesman Jonathan Darling said Monday, though it will be somewhere in the city's historic district that spans several blocks around Johnny Cake Hill. That's where Melville would have spent his time while in New Bedford — where, "back in the day, all the whaling ships departed from, and all the fishermen and whalers hung out," Darling said.

The project will be funded by a mix of public and private funds, according to the mayor's office, though Darling said specific sources had not yet been set.

The city is asking artists by Feb. 16 to submit a budget estimate, along with a resume, samples of other work, and a "narrative description of your interest in the commission" including "how you might approach this project."

Stipends of $2,500 will be awarded to each finalist, as selected by an advisory committee of historians and "representatives from the arts and culture scene," to go toward developing a proposal and traveling to New Bedford to present it.

"Melville's spirit still echoes throughout all of New Bedford," Amanda McMullen, head of the New Bedford Whaling Museum, said in the announcement, adding that the planned statue will be "a wonderful addition to the bounty of terrific public art" in the city.

Moreover, Melville's echoes are still heard across the state.

Known most for his maritime epic and association with the Whaling City, Melville is a quintessential local author from border to border: he wrote Moby Dick while living out west in Pittsfield.

The author's Pittsfield home from 1850 to 1863, known as Arrowhead, is today the headquarters of the Berkshire County Historical Society which offers guided tours of the premises. Berkshire Community College's campus in Pittsfield features Melville Hall as one of its academic buildings.

So great is Western Massachusetts' affinity for Melville that fifth-graders at Egremont Elementary School in Pittsfield lobbied the Legislature years ago to name Moby Dick as the official "epic novel of the Commonwealth."

Former Rep. Christopher Speranzo of Pittsfield sponsored the bill, which was approved by the House in 2008 before dying without action in the Senate at the end of the term in 2009.