[Image above] Members of the University of California, Davis marching band play their instruments and rub the Bookhead sculpture for good luck during final exams in fall 2023. Credit: Gregory Urquiaga, UC Davis
With winter finals now over for many students, they can tuck their good luck charm into storage until the next exam season rolls around. For students at the University of California, Davis, though, their good luck charm stands ready year-round in the form of an outsized, egg-shaped human head with its face buried in a book.
This sculpture, called Bookhead, is part of the Egghead sculpture series, which consists of five sculpted heads scattered throughout campus. Each Egghead is unique in its posing and facial expression, but all reflect the powerful influence that the world, politics, and UC Davis had on the art of ceramics professor Robert Arneson.
Arneson was among the first artists hired to comprise the relatively new UC Davis Department of Art and Art History in 1962. In this role, Arneson established the university’s ceramic sculpture program, which was considered a radical move because ceramics were not recognized as a medium appropriate for fine art at that time. He also helped lead the regional Funk Art movement, which involved crafting nonfunctional sculptures to make confrontational statements.
Arneson died in 1992 after a long battle with liver cancer, and the Egghead sculptures were among the last works he completed. Unlike most of his sculptures, which were made from ceramics, the Eggheads were crafted from painted bronze. Their name comes from the slang term “egghead,” which denotes intellectuals in general and academics in particular.
All five Eggheads were installed around the UC Davis campus by 1994. This year marks the sculptures’ 30th anniversary, and so UC Davis coordinated a series of special events and merchandise offerings in celebration, including a 30-minute documentary distributed by KVIE public television in November 2024 (embedded below).
In a press release, Arneson’s widow, Sandy Shannonhouse, a sculptor and UC Davis alum, says Arneson would have enjoyed all the ways in which the Eggheads are being enjoyed today.
“My family and I are thrilled that Bob’s legacy as an artist and as a professor at UC Davis are being honored today in ways that he would appreciate,” she says. “He had a tremendous sense of humor, and he used humor to address critical political and social issues and encouraged his students to do the same.”
