Council Renews Its Tribute to the Supreme Sacrifice

With the international centennial commemoration of World War I currently underway, and the Wilson Building’s neighboring Pershing Park soon to be repurposed into a national World War I memorial, the Great War is once again on the minds of Washingtonians.

Given this context, the Council took its own steps during recess to commemorate World War I by providing due respect to our own in-house tribute to the war.

Not far from the John A. Wilson Building’s main entrance lies The Supreme Sacrifice, a sculpture by Jerome Connor dedicated to District government employees who lost their lives in World War I.

Nearly 100 years after this memorial sculpture was placed in the Wilson Building, however, it had begun to show its age. The Council decided to contract with Howard Wellman Conservation LLC to clean and preserve the sculpture. Wellman described the statue as being “highly soiled,” with heavy dust, hand soiling, cigarette smoke, and other environmental pollution as likely culprits.

Over the course of three days, Wellman used skewers, brushes, wipes, scrapers, gels, solvents, and distilled water to clean the sculpture and restore its original glory.

Wellman is no stranger to the Wilson Building, having also cleaned and conserved the Alexander “Boss” Shepherd statue long abandoned at the Blue Plains Sewage Treatment Plant, and returned to its previous Wilson Building perch in 2005.