An eighth sculpture is currently on loan at the Rockefeller Center in New York.
If the man outside the library appears 'Out to Lunch', he is
By Michelle Alaimo
Published in the Sunnyvale Sun, July 26, 1995
Reprinted with permission and updated 2007
Every day, for the past 10 years, the same man has sat reading on a bench in front of the Sunnvyale Public Library. He ignores the weather. He disregards passersby. No matter what happens, he never takes his eyes off his book.
He seems crazy, it's true. Until one realizes he's a statue.
"Out to Lunch" is a lifelike bronze sculpture of a young man reading a book, written in Spanish, and holding a partially eaten hamburger.
Children love to run up to the sculpture and touch it. On any given day, children are seen sitting in the statue's lap or trying to take away the sandwich. One patron, who requested her name be withheld, said she plans to bring her camera next time to take a picture of her son next to the sculpture.
The sculpture was purchased in 1985 for $40,000 at former Sunnyvale Mayor John Mercer's urging after he saw a similar piece on display in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington D.C. while on a business trip.
The city of Sunnyvale's budget had $25,000 set aside for a sculpture to place in front of the newly expanded and renovated library, which reopened that June. The city council, in meetings prior to February 1985, already had decided the sculpture should be a human form rather than an abstract one.
"I just wanted something different for the library and the atmosphere," Mercer said. "When I first saw the sculpture, I assumed there was only one."
Mercer had no idea the sculpture, made by J. Seward Johnson Jr., grandson to the founder of Johnson & Johnson, was cast in a series of eight, one of which the artist kept as the artist’s proof. The Sunnyvale Arts Commission contacted the Georgetown mall where Mercer saw the sculpture and located the curator who sells Johnson's pieces.
Sheryl Nonnenberg, the city's cultural arts supervisor, at the time, learned that a tentative sale of the sixth casting of the sculpture had fallen through and that Sunnyvale would be placed on a long list of possible buyers.
A week later, the city received a call from the curator giving them until the end of the week to make a decision.
The next day, Mercer brought in his snapshots of the "Out to Lunch" sculpture to a city council meeting and urged his fellow council members to approve the purchase even though the Sunnyvale Arts Commission had not approved of the purchase yet.
"It violated every procedure we have for buying art," Mercer said. Although he felt uneasy about being rushed into a decision, he knew this was the city's only chance to buy the sculpture.
Mercer felt the sculpture was appropriate for the library because it is of a young person reading a book. Five of the six council members agreed and voted to purchase the sculpture. Only Councilmember Harry Cude abstained because he didn't like being rushed into spending $15,000 more than originally planned for the sculpture.
Funds for the sculpture came from the 1985 general fund and a planned art purchase for 1986, which was scratched.
The attention the statue draws to the library appears to have justified its expense.
Madhu Vakil, a frequent Sunnyvale Public Library patron, said that "so many people stop by and took a look and try to read the book. It's very detailed and looks like a real man sitting there."
The "Out to Lunch" sculpture was made in1979. It is just one of hundreds of Johnson's works. The Sunnyvale statue is the only "Out to Lunch" sculpture on the West Cost - and apparently the only one whose book is in Spanish, the curator said.
"This is one of the unique characteristics about Seward Johnson's work," said Jay Murphy, assistant curator for Sculpture Placement Ltd. of Washington, D.C. He said that Johnson often fine-tunes certain aspects of his sculptures to fit where the original buyer is placing the piece. This includes localizing a newspaper or making the book a certain way.
"Seward if America's hyper-realistic sculptor. His works are the most renowned," Murphy said.
In November 1994, the "Out to Lunch" sculpture was named as the town's best sculpture by The Sun's readers.
'Out to Lunch' by J. Seward Johnson © 1975 The Sculpture Foundation
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