The Spirit of Détroit

The Spirit of Detroit is a bronze statue created by Marshall Fredericks. The massive figure represents the spirit of man created by a radiant God who is the source of light and life with no beginning nor end (see the orb in the left hand.). 

 

At the time the work was erected in 1958, it was the largest cast bronze statue since the Renaissance period.  At the foot of the city’s major thoroughfare, Woodward Avenue, it sits before a gleaming building which houses all city branches of government: the legislative, the executive, and the judicial. The seals of the city and county adorn the rich Vermont marble wall behind it.

 

In the right hand of the bronze figure are a father, mother, and a child.  Frederick believed that man is a reflection of God and that the family is the noblest human relationships.

 

To capture the spirit of the city, the Spirit of Detroit, Marshall selected the fragment from a letter written by a merchant to his friends in an ancient seacoast town. The merchant was Paul. The town was Corinth. The fragment carved in the Vermont marble says, “now the Lord is that spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

 

So let our work capture this same Spirit. 

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