Child on Dolphin

Child on Dolphin

John Edward Svenson, 1970

Child on Dolphin by John Edward Svenson is a fountain and sculpture that sits in front of Chase Bank on Lincoln and Harbor Boulevard.

Near a busy sunlit intersection in Anaheim dominated by the sounds of traffic and the occasional air-brake hiss of city busses, a young child is going for a joy ride with a trio of dolphins. His arms outstretched like a rodeo bronc buster, the youth seems barely capable of keeping his seat, as the creatures slip over and below the waves of an imagined sea.

John Edward Svenson’s sculpture celebrating the joyful spirit of childhood has enhanced the southwest corner of Harbor Boulevard and Lincoln Avenue (one mile north of Disneyland) for over forty years. The bronze cast was commissioned for Anaheim’s Home Savings of America branch in 1970, to accompany Millard Sheets’ brilliant tile mosaic depicting the early years of Anaheim history. Through his association with the Sheets Studio from the 1950s through the early 1970s, Svenson produced more than twenty sculptures for Home Savings and the Ahmanson Corporation all over Southern California.