Best of Picture from the Past
Landmark cat sculptures created by Robert Paine
Project took two years
By John S. Baggerly
Until recently, when Ed Carman, a second-generation local nursery owner, wrote us a letter, this writer knew little of Robert Paine, the sculptor of the The Cats statues, Leo and Leona, at the entrance to the estate of Col. Erskine Scott Wood off the Santa Cruz Highway just south of town.
Carman, a friend of Paine's granddaughter, Evelyn Ratcliff, of Berkeley, writes: "There have been several items in the Weekly-Times recently about the Wood Estate. They reminded us of a friend who is the granddaughter of the sculptor Robert Paine who created The Cats statues.
Paine had a studio in New York, where he invented an instrument that allowed him to enlarge a model to any size he wished. He spent two years in Italy doing a larger-than- life statue of a chariot pulled by horses.
Commissioned to do some work at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, he moved his studio to Berkeley. In 1920, he was commissioned by Col. Wood to do The Cats. He lived in a wooden shack on the Wood estate while working on the castings.
Our friend of 10 years recalls traveling by train from Berkeley to spend weekends with her grandfather. She and her mother would make regular visits to Los Gatos to see Mr. Paine during the two years it took to finish The Cats, which were cast in place.
Still a resident of Berkeley, Ratcliff confirmed Carman's memory and added that her grandfather was born in 1869 in Indiana, attended art school in Chicago and migrated to his own studio in New York, then the mecca of American artists.
In 1911, he was commissioned to come to Rome with his patented instrument to enlarge two chariots to be placed atop the Victor Emmanuel building.
Back in the United States, Paine headed to the 1915 San Francisco exposition commemorating the building of the Panama Canal. It was during this time that Wood commissioned Paine to do his Cats statues.
Ratcliff came to stay with her grandfather in his crude studio. She recalls playing with toads and water dogs in the pretty countryside.
Today, Bruce and Diane Ogilvie are resident owners of The Cats.
John Baggerly is enjoying a well-earned retirement. He says he'll come up with a new column on occasion; meanwhile we'll be running some of his old favorites.
Los Gatos, California Since 1881
