Home wanted for Napier's 'Tin Kong'
Wanted: Good home for a corrugated iron gorilla, three metres tall.
Napier woman Margaret Mackereth is trying to sell a King Kong sculpture that has been part of the city's landscape since 1991.
She and her late husband, Jim, commissioned Jeff Thomson - now celebrated for his corrugated-iron sculptures - to create their King Kong to help publicise their amusement arcade and cafe in Marine Pde.
"We thought we could spend money on marketing or create something so that people would like to go there," Ms Mackereth said yesterday.
The giant gorilla's head loomed over the parapet of their building, brandishing a soft-drink can in a raised arm.
After they sold the business, King Kong languished for some time in a railway yard, before Napier City Council borrowed it and put it atop the Lilliput Building, part of the Hawke's Bay Museum and Art Gallery, further along Marine Pde.
Now the Lilliput Building is to be demolished to make way for the new museum building. Ms Mackereth has till September to sell the sculpture.
"The council is not interested in keeping it and I have no building to put it on," she said. "We like him very much and I hope we can find a good home for him. I'd like to see him stay in Napier.
"If nothing happens he will be demolished with the building."
Two art auction houses decided King Kong was too tough to handle, but one valued him at $15,000.
The gorilla is designed to stand atop a parapet, limiting his appeal to potential buyers.
"He doesn't work at ground level," Ms Mackereth said.
Museum director Douglas Lloyd Jenkins said the "Tin Kong" was a good example of Thomson's work.
The museum had other works of his, including an icecream and an abstract.
"A couple of business people have expressed interest in it. I think it has great commercial appeal, and that's what it was designed for."
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