Displaying items by tag: brass

Sculptures by the two artists featured here in temporary presentations at Storm King Art Center this year couldn’t be less alike. A single Minimalist piece by the New York sculptor Virginia Overton is gracefully fitted to the landscape of gently rolling hills. Six monumental, figurative sculptures by Zhang Huan of Shanghai are ponderously theatrical.

Ms. Overton’s untitled piece is a straight, nearly 500-foot length of brass tubing about four inches in diameter elevated four feet above the ground by thin rods. From a valley between low hills, it follows an upward slope to its peak and then disappears over the other side.

Eight Nigerian artifacts that were probably stolen decades ago and illegally sent to the United States have been returned to the West African country by the Museum of Fine Arts, according to museum officials, who said Nigerian authorities planned to announce the transfer on Thursday.

The decision to return the artworks, including a 2,000-year-old terra-cotta head, was the culmination of an 18-month pursuit through dusty records and old gallery brochures, untangling an art-world mystery that spanned several continents. Along the way, the MFA discovered that one item, a brass altar figure, had probably been stolen from the royal palace in Benin City as recently as the 1970s.