Red Baron Sculptures Returning to E-Ville Marina

Snoopy and the Red Baron are making a comeback. Or at least the biplanes the two comic strip characters are associated with.

Albany-based artist Tyler Hoare has been delighting motorists on the Eastshore Freeway for years with his sculptures of the two World War I-era planes, and he will install a new version of the aircraft on Saturday at the Emeryville mud flats next to the Chevy’s restaurant at 1890 Powell St.

The installation will take place from 1 to 3 p.m. Volunteers are welcome.

“The last one, my wife got mad at me because I didn’t do anything for the volunteers,” Hoare said. “So this time we’ll go over (afterward) and have a taco and a beer.”

The Berkeley resident, who has his studio in Albany, knows the drill by now.

“When I did this the first time in 1975, I was 35 years old. Now I’m 72. I can almost do it by myself. I always like to have somebody come along in case I fall in.”

The Red Baron and Sopwith Camel planes each measure about 12 by 10 by 6 feet, and last about five years, according to Hoare. He normally has the planes facing south but this time will have them facing each other in a midair dogfight.

“The Red Baron will be facing the dock,” Hoare said. “The Sopwith will be facing out to sea.”

Hoare installed the first planes in 1975 on the remains of an old pier. There were about 20 old wood posts in the water back then, giving him plenty of opportunities to install his whimsical creations.He has put the Red Baron and the Sopwith Camel out there several times, as well as a collection of pirate ships and a ship known as the “Chinese junk.”

Hoare said there are now just three posts left in the water and that he doesn’t expect them to survive more than another five years.

The same natural forces destroying the pier are the ones that ultimately destroy his artwork. Which is part of the point.

Whatever Hoare puts out on the water is made of recycled materials and installed with the knowledge that it might last a week, or several years.

“What I’m doing is No. 32,” he said. “That’s how many boats and airplanes have gone out on the Bay. It’s been the Chinese junk, pirate ships, there’ve been a dozen airplanes. The planes will last five years. The ships will last a week because of the wave action.”

At the Emeryville location, “That post is right in line with the Golden Gate Bridge, so you’re getting the wave action of the ocean, not the Bay.”

The artist, who also has a plane hanging at Albany High School, has collected plenty of stories over the years. His first installation was stolen, which led restaurateur Joe Scoma to invite Hoare to the establishment he owned on the property at the time.

Scoma offered to buy a piece and have it put back out on the water, promising to make sure nobody stole it.

There was also the mallard duck Hoare created for Club Mallard in Albany. The owner allowed Hoare to drink free at the club, so the artist wanted to return the favor.

The artist built an 8-by 8-foot mallard and installed it near Golden Gate Fields for the owner’s birthday. Hoare then arranged for a limousine to pick up the owner and drive him by.

Unfortunately, by the time the limo arrived, the waves had destroyed the duck. So, Hoare built another one and this time made sure that it was installed just before the limo arrived.

“That was a case when it didn’t even last one day,” he recalled.

When a local politician put a sign on one of his sculptures, Hoare called him and suggested that locals might find it obnoxious that he used the artwork in such a crass way. The sign was gone the next day.

Hoare does art for other purposes. He just sent a piece to the Peninsula Art Museum and has another ready for the San Mateo County Fair.

So why does Hoare keep returning to the Red Baron and the Sopwith Camel?

“I couldn’t tell you where the World War I thing came,” he said. “When I was thinking about that post, I was thinking a banana. No, no, no.”

Instead, he went with the plane. He hasn’t quite put (as the song goes) “10, 20, 30, 40, 50 or more” out there, but he has created an East Bay treasure.