BIG RED HISTORY

by Elijah Humble

Some people think it looks like a dragon, while others see a cardinal bird. And perhaps fittingly for an institution of higher business education, still others see the bull and bear of the stock market. Whatever you see when you walk past Big Red, the striking sculpture outside Frazier Hall, is open to interpretation. And that was the concept all along.

Big Red was created by Louisville artist Tom Lear in 1989 and was dedicated in the spring of 1990. According to various local media reports and campus historical archives, the project was conceived by such illustrious College of Business alumni as philanthropist and arts patron Jane Morton Norton (sister of longtime Kentucky politician Thruston B. Morton, whose family played a role in the foundation of the Filson Historical Society) and her nephew T. Ballard Morton, as well as then-Assistant Dean Jane Goldstein. It is now surrounded by the Entrepreneurship Circle of Fame wall, which highlights legendary entrepreneurs with ties to the College of Business.

The Goal

“The idea was to create something that would be eye-catching and fun to look at, that would symbolize the power of creativity, and… suggest possibilities rather than solutions,” said T. Ballard Morton at the time, then-Executive in Residence at the College of Business. He is also a member of the Entrepreneurship Circle and Founder of the College’s Cardinal Challenge business plan competition. “I think Big Red fulfills these desires and serves as a joyful inspiration to us as we meet the challenges of change and growth.”

Goldstein had been buying art for the building from early on, trying to promote Kentucky artists, and was familiar with Lear, who ultimately earned the commission. As the project developed, Lear said, “The goal was to show the excitement of the business school and the interaction of the School of Business and the city of Louisville.”

Lear, who passed away after a sudden illness in 2000 at the age of 53, made his reputation on other notable installations at the KFC headquarters, the James Graham Brown Cancer Center and Centre College in Danville, where his “Ex Astris” sculpture (which means “from the stars”), created in 1978, resides outside the Regional Arts Center building. It took Lear nine months to create Big Red, which is 24 feet tall and weighs three tons. The only facility that could handle the painting job was an auto dealership. He joked that he lost a couple of pints of blood while working on the project after he “cut off a little bit of his toe and burned himself severely while welding.” He said it took him two weeks after the project to return to feeling normal physically and mentally.