New York City is a city brimming with sculpture in a staggering array of styles. You can find everything from the most meticulous realism to the most minimalist abstraction in the streets of NYC, and all without having to enter a museum or gallery.
Alamo by Tony Rosenthal, also called (more obviously) The Cube, is 8-foot-square and nearly a ton, but can be rotated on its pivot by a single person. It’s an iconic part of Astor Place and one of New York’s most recognizable sculptures, but it’s just one of five by the same artist.
Equally famous is Charging Bull, the energetic 11-foot tall bovine in Bowling Green Park near Wall Street. In a benevolent gesture of guerilla-art, sculptor Arturo Di Modica installed the statue as a gift to the city after the 1987 stock market crash. Police originally impounded the bull, but public outcry brought it back.
Fritz Koenig’s The Sphere, now in Battery Park, was originally a symbol of world peace through world trade, but has since taken on new meaning after its recovery from the wreckage of the 9/11 attacks. More abstract geometry can be found in the work of Tony Smith, who once said “I don’t make sculpture, I articulate form”: Tau (1/3) on the campus of Hunter College, Throwback (1/3) at 1166 Avenue of the Americas.
The Rolling Bench, found at Grant’s Tomb, is a collaborative work by Pedro Silva and several other artists including local children. Its sinuous length and rollicking color contrast sharply with the austere monument nearby, making it a frequent object of controversy and even near-removal during the centennial of Grant’s death.
Tom Otterness‘ Life Underground is deservedly famous—an assortment of 100+ bronze figures whose comical charm hides sharp social criticism in the 14th Street/8th Avenue subway station. Less well known is the city’s other MTA-commissioned subterranean collection of sculptures: A Gathering by Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz. In this piece, 181 birds of various species perch on the railings of the mezzanine, giving a lively air to the Canal Street station.
NYC is big into equestrian statuary as well. There’s Joan of Arc on the west end of 93rd Street and El Cid on the Audubon Terrace, both by Anna Hyatt Huntington. The Equestrian Statue of Theodore Roosevelt in front of the American Museum of Natural History may be offensive if you’re Native- or African-American but inspiring if you like moustaches (the artist, James Earle Fraser, also designed the Indian-head nickle). Step into more unfamiliar history with the King Jagiello Monument by Stanisław K. Ostrowski on the east side of Turtle Pond in Central Park. This towering statue commemorates the king of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania’s victory over the Teutonic Knights in 1410, and would have ended up back in Poland were it not for Germany’s invasion immediately after the 1939 New York World’s Fair.
For those who prefer their historical figures on foot, you’ll be at home with New York’s Italian sculptors. Try Juan Pablo Duarte (founder of the Dominican Republic) in the square named after him, by Nicola Arrighini, Giuseppe Verdi (composer of comic operas) in the square named after him, by Pasquale Civiletti, or Christopher Columbus in Astoria, Queens, by Angelo Racioppi.
If you’re more into mythology, there’s Alma Mater, Daniel Chester French’s statue of Athena on the steps of the Low Memorial Library (legend has it that the first Cambridge student to find the owl hidden in her robe each year will become the class valedictorian); the 45-foot Atlas by Lee Lawrie, in front of the Rockefeller Center (known to millions of readers from the paperback cover of Atlas Shrugged); Poseidon, Triton and other various figures by Eugene Savage that make up the Bailey Fountain in Prospect Park; as well as the Archangel Michael, Satan, and several giraffes in Greg Wyatt’s Peace Fountain next to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
And finally, of course, there’s Liberty Enlightening the World.
(But really, though, there’s far more than can be discussed in a single article. Try here, here and here for more outdoor art in NYC!)
1 Comment
[…] on one side of the street is St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and on the other is Lee Lawrie’s massive statue of Atlas. On the south side of the Titan you can find Banana Republic, offering the middlebrow […]