Reno, NV, USA. The University of Nevada-Reno (UNR) has added a statue to its decor, the statue of a Basque Shepherd, formerly located at John Ascuaga 's Nugget Casino in Sparks, outside the Orozko restaurant. After the sale of the casino by the Ascuaga family, the Orozko restaurant, that featured Basque photographs and decorations, also changed its name and character and so the statue lost the context for which it was created, resulting in the casino donating it to the University.
After waiting for a time in a warehouse, the moment for its final move came this week with UNR installing the statue on campus. The bronze statue is the work of the sculptor Douglas Van Howd that was commissioned by John Ascuaga when he saw that Nestor Basterretxea’s Monument to the Basque Shepherd, inaugurated in 1989, at Rancho San Rafael Park in Reno, was not a figurative work, but a sculpture "in which the figure of a shepherd was not clearly perceived,” in the words of Ascuaga.
The sculpture, donated by the Nugget Casino, is now installed at the university and clearly shows a figure of a traditional herder and his dog. The Center for Basque Studies at the University accepted the gift and was in charge of covering the expense of moving it from Sparks, storing it and now its relocation to UNR next to the Knowledge Center where the Center for Basque Studies is also located.
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