Restoration of the Melchizedek Priesthood (sculpture)

In June 1962, the First Presidency of the LDS Church announced they had commissioned artist Avard Fairbanks to create a monument to commemorate the restoration of the Melchizedek priesthood. The sculpture was meant to be a companion piece to his sculpture Restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood,^[2] which had been placed on Temple Square in 1957.^[3]

In April 1964, a full-sized plaster of the work was shipped to New York City, where it was put on display in the Mormon Pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair.^[4][5] After the fair, the church stored the plaster in a crate outside one its warehouses in Salt Lake City for many years. In the 1980s, the Fairbanks family petitioned the church for the plaster, so that it could be restored and placed in the Fairview Museum of History and Art in Fairview, Utah. The plaster had been damaged by the outdoor storage and move to Fairview, and by the time the restoration started, it had broken into approximately 200 pieces. The work was reassembled, restored and gilded by family members in the 1990s.^[6][7][8]

The bronze casting for Temple Square was completed in 1972.^[1] Although the sculpture was not added to Temple Square for several decades later, until 2006. It was placed next to Fairbanks' other sculpture, Restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood, in an area between the Salt Lake Temple and South Visitors Center.^[9] Both statues were moved to the southwest quarter of the block as part of the 2020s redevelopment of Temple Square.^[10]

In September 2015, the newly restored and enhanced Priesthood Restoration Site was dedicated. During the development of the site, bronze castings of both of Fairbanks' priesthood restoration statues were placed near the meetinghouse/visitors center.^[11] The castings were created by Peter M. Fillerup, a former art student of Fairbanks.^[12]

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