Welcome to the Public Outdoor Sculpture at Columbia blog! Walking around the Morningside Campus, students, faculty, staff, and visitors can see along brick-lined plazas, among verdant trees, and nestled in the lawns a number of large-scale figurative and abstract works in stone, bronze, and steel. These are the public sculptures of Columbia University. There are eighteen free-standing sculptures throughout the Morningside Campus, plus a number of relief plaques in various locations. There is also public sculpture at Barnard College and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. The public outdoor sculpture is overseen by Art Properties, the department responsible for all the art collections of Columbia, based in Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library. This blog is the place to find out everything you would want to know about these sculptures. Over time we will post historical and current information and images about the public outdoor sculpture. We invite your comments and feedback, and send us your pictures of the sculptures as well by emailing them to artproperties@libraries.cul.columbia.edu. We cannot promise to use every one of them, but those we do use will be made available to the public, although we will be sure to credit you for the photograph.

Image Credit: Daniel Chester French, Alma Mater, 1903, bronze, Gift of Mrs. Robert Goelet and Robert Goelet, Jr., in memory of Robert Goelet, Class of 1860 (C00.870). Photograph by Sandy Kaufman, Office of Publications, Columbia University.