Statue of Phog Allen, Kwan Wu

Public art comes to be on campus in different ways. A university may set aside a fund to commission art for the campus, or groups and individuals may donate a work of art. This sculpture was dedicated in 1997 on the 90th anniversary of the first basketball game Phog Allen coached at KU. Commissioned by the Phog Allen Memorial Foundation, most of the funding was raised by sales of small versions of the statue. It was cast in bronze using a process that makes it possible for small and large forms of the same work to be created. The artist, Kwan Wu, first visited KU in December 1988 to work with professor Elden C. Tefft. After the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, Wu stayed in the United States and established a studio in Overland Park, Kansas.