From the White House Rose Garden to the U.S. Naval Academy, one Santa Monica filmmaker has made it his job to put American presidents in bronze.
Presidents usually wait for history to decide whether they get a statue. Steven C. Barber does not wait. In the space of eighteen months, the Santa Monica filmmaker and director of VUGA Foundation, an art-centered non-profit, presented a statue of a sitting president, delivered Thomas Jefferson to the White House Rose Garden, and unveiled a bronze bust of Jimmy Carter at the U.S. Naval Academy. His own release calls him "America's Monument maker" and says he has created monuments for both the 45th and 47th presidential administrations.
The title fits. Barber has now commissioned 18 national statues. Several of them sit closer to the Oval Office than most Americans ever get.
A Statue for a Sitting President
On April 1, 2025, Barber presented a statue of President Donald Trump at Trump International Golf Club in Palm Beach. It was sculpted by George and Mark Lundeen of Loveland, Colorado, the father-and-son team behind most of his work. A release about Barber describes him as the first person in 250 years to build a monument for a president while that president was still in office.
Barber anticipated the obvious question: why honor a polarizing figure while the debate is still running? His answer, given to The Argonaut, is short.
"President Trump's controversy has nothing to do with recording history. I don't make history. I just record it."
That line explains his whole body of work. A monument is not an endorsement of every decision a leader made. It is a marker that says this person held the office, and the country should remember it. A second Trump monument is in progress at Patriot Park in Huntington Beach, California.
The Lundeens are a natural partner for this kind of work. Their studio has thousands of commissions across the country, including the statue of Amelia Earhart in the U.S. Capitol. When a president's likeness has to be right the first time, Barber goes back to the same shop.
The Carter dedication plaque traces his path from midshipman to the presidency.
Jefferson Comes to the Rose Garden
In July 2026, Barber presented a statue of Thomas Jefferson in the White House Rose Garden, again sculpted by the Lundeens. The author of the Declaration of Independence now stands in the garden where modern presidents sign laws and greet foreign leaders. According to the release, the President called the Lundeen studio and left a voicemail for George Lundeen to thank him.
Barber has a phrase for why he keeps going:
"Once you taste purpose, the taste of simply existing is completely unsatisfying."
Presidents were not his first subject. Barber built his reputation on space. He brought the Apollo 11 crew to Kennedy Space Center in bronze in 2019, followed with an Apollo 13 monument at Space Center Houston, and honored Sally Ride, the first American woman in space. His father worked on Apollo 11 for General Motors. The step from astronauts to presidents was a short one: both are Americans who carried the country's hopes in public.
Outside Carter Hall, the Naval Academy building renamed for the 39th president in 2023. The Hon & Mrs. John H. Dalton with Josh Carter.
Carter at Annapolis
The newest piece honors a president from the other party. On October 1, 2026, what would have been Jimmy Carter's 102nd birthday, Barber unveiled a bronze bust of the 39th president in the lobby of Mahan Hall at the U.S. Naval Academy. Carter graduated from Annapolis in 1946 and served in submarines under Hyman Rickover before going home to Georgia. He is the only president to graduate from the Academy.
The Academy had already renamed Maury Hall as Carter Hall in 2023. The bust adds a face to the name, placed where midshipmen pass it every day.
Barber raised $75,000 for the bust in a single day. "To be able to present this statue of President Carter is exciting and is my 18th national statue I have commissioned," he said in his announcement. The donor plaque names Fred Smith, Scott Wine, Ed Roski, Steven C. Barber, and John and Cari Fawcett.
Guests view the Carter bust and plaque in the Mahan Hall lobby after the unveiling.
Two Parties, One Principle
A monument maker who honors Trump in 2025 and Carter in 2026 is not picking sides. He is doing the job the country used to do on its own. For most of American history, cities and schools raised statues of presidents as a matter of course. Today that work is rare, slow, and often stalled by committees. Barber skips the committees. He finds the donors, hires the sculptors, and secures the site.
The pattern is the same every time. He picks a figure who shaped the country. He calls chief executives directly and asks them to pay for legacy, not advertising. He hands the art to the Lundeens. Then he delivers a finished bronze to a place where the public will see it every day.
The result is a growing record in bronze of American leadership, regardless of party. Jefferson in the Rose Garden. Trump in Palm Beach. Carter at Annapolis. Each one will outlast the arguments that surrounded its subject.
Guests gather beside the Carter bust after the October 1 dedication. The Hon & Mrs. John H. Dalton, Josh Carter, George Lundeen, Admiral Michael Mullen, ret., Secretary & Mrs. Carlos Del Toro.
Barber started out in sales and became a filmmaker before he ever raised money for a statue. His documentaries reached the Oscar shortlist. Bronze gives him something film never could. A film plays and ends. A statue stays on the ground and greets the next visitor, and the one after that. "I don't make history," he says. "I just record it." In bronze, that record lasts for centuries.
