By George Beccaloni, September 2019
On the 30th August 2019, magnificent life-size bronze statues of Alfred Russel Wallace and his faithful assistant Ali were unveiled outside the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum (LKCNHM) in Singapore. Wallace is pointing at a sculpture of a male of Wallace's Standardwing Bird of Paradise on a nearby pillar, and Ali has his gun ready. The scene is from the island of Bacan in Indonesia where Wallace and Ali discovered this bird, which at the time was new to science.
The statue of Wallace is based on the one of him by Anthony Smith which the Wallace Memorial Fund donated to London's Natural History Museum in 2013 and it is only the second statue of him ever made (there are however several busts and other portraits). The statue of Ali is unique and is based on the only known photograph of him, which was taken at Wallace's request in Singapore in 1862.
The statues were the brainchild of Prof. Peter Ng (LKCNHM) and Barry Clarke (Taylor & Francis Asia Pacific) many years ago. The original plans were shelved as funds were not forthcomming, but funding was recently securred thanks to heightened interest in Singapore's history as a result of this year's bicentennary of the founding of the island nation.
The Making of the Statues