Displaying items by tag: public sculpture

Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum, which specializes in modern and contemporary art and design, has received a major gift from the Swedish-born sculptor Claes Oldenburg and his late wife and long-time collaborator, Coosje van Bruggen. The couple met in 1976 while van Bruggen was working as a curator at the Stedelijk. Together, they created a swath of colorful, large-scale public sculptures, including "Flashlight" in Las Vegas, "Clothespin" in Philadelphia, "Spoonbridge and Cherry" in Minnesota, and "Shuttlecocks" in Kansas City.

Oldenburg and van Bruggen’s gift includes 175 works by 34 artists and spans a wide range of media -- from correspondence material and archival documents to installations, collages, sculptures, photographs, works on paper, books, and posters. van Bruggen served as a member of the curatorial staff at the Stedelijk from 1967 to 1971, a breakthrough period for conceptual and minimalist art.

A cast of Auguste Rodin’s (1840-1917) Monument to the Burghers of Calais, which has stood in the gardens next to London’s House of Parliament for almost a century, will be moved to the gardens at Perry Green in Hertfordshire, England for the upcoming exhibition Moore Rodin. The show, which opens on March 29, 2013, will compare the works of Henry Moore (1898-1986) and Rodin, two major figures in modern sculpture.

Perry Green, which was Moore’s home for over 40 years until his death in 1986, now houses a gallery, 70 acres of gardens, and the Henry Moore Foundation. The Foundation is responsible for organizing the groundbreaking exhibition, which marks the first time another artist has been shown alongside Moore at Perry Green. Moore was an ardent admirer of Rodin’s work and considered Monument to the Burghers of Calais the greatest public sculpture in London.

Moore Rodin will include a number of loans from the Musée Rodin in Paris, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. Musée Rodin is lending Adam (1881), the third maquette for the seminial The Gates of Hell (circa 1881-82), and Walking Man, Large Torso (1906) for the exhibition. The Musée Bourdelle in Paris will lend the Foundation Walking Man (1899), a cast of which Moore owned. In addition to the sculptures, the exhibition will include an extensive selection of drawings by both artists and photographs taken by Moore of his cast of Walking Man at Perry Green.

Moore Rodin will be on view through October 27, 2013.