David of Sassoon and JFK.

16-Foot-Tall Unwanted JFK

Fresno, California

In 1964 Fresno artist Varaz Samuelian created a 16-foot-tall, 18-ton clay sculpture of assassinated President John F. Kennedy. Its size, he said, conveyed the magnitude of the artist's grief. "I felt so bad," he told The Fresno Bee at the time. "It seemed like a good thing to do."

Unfortunately no one else felt bad enough to commission a metal or stone version of Samuelian's big statue. Its clay model now stands in the yard of a house, slowly succumbing to the elements. Samuelian died in 1995.

Next to JFK stands an even larger statue, Samuelian's 18-foot-tall cement model for a statue of Armenian folk hero David of Sassoon. For reasons that only Fresno can explain, the city commissioned the Armenian folk hero but not the martyred President. A copper version of David of Sassoon stands next to the Fresno County Hall of Records.