Copper Fountains by Dominick Laruccia Jr.

Bird Fountain 28 Inches

In 1969-1970 Dominick Laruccia, Jr. designed a series of copper fountains under the company name of Dom Designs. They were initially marketed at a gift show at the LA Gift Mart. A dealer with the last name of Klein was kind enough to provide a booth to show the pieces. There were a number of orders taken at that time. With those orders in hand, Dominick went to a piano dealer named David Abel and bought a baby grand piano. Artists! The pieces had not even been made yet. I think payments on the piano lagged and as a gesture, Dominick made a copper box that evoked the form of a grand piano. It was a stunning piece resting on wound copper legs and lined with leather.

These fountains were made of copper and silver braising alloy. The themes were organic with some playful mechanical features. They featured a small recirculating pump concealed in the base. It soon become evident that the aluminum pump and the raw copper were producing a galvanic reaction that corroded the pump. The solution was to paint the interior of the base with an epoxy paint. The main design problems was to control the splashing.

Dominick was and avid photographer. As a chemist, he would develop his own black and white shots but the color photographs were developed at a commercial studio. He would work with the technician to get he colors true to life. The pictures were taken with an old box camera with a black veil on a tripod with photographic plates. He would carefully measure the distance to the piece, work on a single source light, check the exposure and shoot.

I recall that around two dozen at the most were made of these fountains. They sold through the Klein store in Los Angles as well as Gump's in San Francisco. I imagine there are still pieces in existence as Dominick use to say that they would last for 400 years unless a patina was applied. In that case, shelf life was 300 years. Please call if you know of any of these sculptures.

Michael Hutchings

805 568-1896

[email protected]

Orchid Fountain 26"