Highlights from the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden in DC
29.01.2023
The Burghers of Calais, Auguste Rodin, 1953-59; under French law no more than 12 original casts of works of Rodin may be made and this is one of the 12; the work was commissioned by the city of Calais
King and Queen, Henry Moore, 1953; this is one of the few works by Henry Moore where you can actually tell what the sculpture represents; most of his work consists of round blocks that could be anything
The Hirshhorn is sited halfway between the Washington Monument and the US Capitol on the National Mall; the sculpture garden is sited below street level and just across the street from the Hirshhorn Museum
Monument to Balzac, Auguste Rodin, 1891-98, cast 1965-66; on July 2, 1939 (22 years after the Rodin's death) this model was cast in bronze for the first time and placed on the Boulevard du Montparnasse in Paris at the intersection with Boulevard Raspail
Post-Balzac, Judith Shea, 1991; at Hirshhorn's death in 1981, he willed an additional 6,000 works and a $5 million endowment to the Museum; much of his fortune came from uranium mining
Pittsburgh Landscape, David Smith, 1954; in 1966 Hirshhorn donated his collection, consisting of 6,000 paintings and sculptures from the 19th and 20h centuries (constituting one of the world's largest private art treasures), to the US government
Subcommittee, Tony Cragg, 1991; a shrewd investor, Hirshhorn sold off his Wall Street investments two months before the collapse of 1929, realizing $4 million in cash
The Drummer, Barry Flanagan, 1989-90; there's also a work by Flanagan across the National Mall at the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden which is between the West Building and the National Museum of Natural History
Crouching Woman, Auguste Rodin, 1880-82, cast 1962; this is the original work; Joseph Hirshhorn emigrated to the US from Latvia and went to work as an office boy on Wall Street at age 14 and ended up with a fortune of $100+ million
Wish Tree for Washington, DC, Yoko Ono, 2007; call me old-fashioned, but when did giving a museum a tree make you an artist?; Ono is 88 years old now and will be remembered for her marriage to John Lennon more than for her art
Figure, Jacques Lipchitz, 1926-30, cast 1958-61; Lipchitz fled his native Lithuania in WW2 and settled in Paris where he became friends with Amedeo Modigliani and became a leading Cubist sculptor
Eros, Inside Eros, Arman, 1986; this French-born, American artist began signing his works only with his first name as an homage to Van Gogh, who also signed his works with his first name, Vincent
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