Conservation day has arrived! The Curl by Clement Meadmore, the large sculpture installed outside Uris Hall, is about to undergo a major conservation project. Those following the Public Outdoor Sculpture at Columbia blog may recall our previous posts about this work, including a video about its history and deteriorating condition over decades of exposure to […]
William Ordway Partridge and the Van Amringe Memorial
The face of John Howard Van Amringe (1835-1915), with his fashionable low-hanging whiskers, is one of the most recognizable in Columbia’s visual history. Van Amringe graduated from Columbia College in 1860 and began teaching courses in mathematics that same year. Fifty years later in 1910, he retired as the much-esteemed Dean of Columbia College and […]
Kees Verkade and Tightrope Walker
Crossing the sky bridge over Amsterdam Ave. and walking toward Columbia University’s Law School, visitors quickly see a towering bronze sculpture depicting two tightrope walkers, one balancing atop the other’s shoulders. Created as a tribute to General William J. (“Wild Bill”) Donovan, a graduate of Columbia College and Columbia Law School, Tightrope Walker was created […]
Public Sculpture, November 2014
Here are a few new photos of the some of the public outdoor sculptures on the Morningside campus, taken by Art Properties student assistant Michael J. Munro (GSAPP, Historic Preservation). If you want to send us your photos and possibly see them on the blog, email us at artproperties@library.columbia.edu. […]
Curl: The Video
Clement Meadmore’s abstract sculpture The Curl was commissioned from the artist by Percy Uris, and in 1968 the work was installed at Columbia outside the newly-constructed Uris Hall. The Office of Marketing and Communications at the Business School recently produced this fascinating video about the history of the sculpture and its arrival on campus. Credit […]
Conserving Jefferson, Hamilton, and the Thinker
If you are strolling around the Morningside campus this week and next week, you will notice people working in the hot sun treating three bronze sculptures: William Ordway Partridge’s two statues of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, and Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker. Conservation Solutions has been contracted to clean, treat, patinate, and rewax these statues […]
Unveiling Alma Mater
Thanks to the ongoing release of digital images from University Archives, we are able to visually relive great moments from Columbia’s past. For instance, the image you see here shows the unveiling of the sculpture Alma Mater, which was designed by Daniel Chester French and cast in bronze by John Williams. From the time of […]
Auguste Rodin and The Thinker
Among all the public outdoor sculptures on campus, the one probably most familiar to people is The Thinker (Le Penseur) by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917). Situated on the lawn outside Philosophy Hall, The Thinker is six feet tall without his base, which adds nearly another six feet to its overall height. Rodin began […]
Abuse and Preservation of Public Outdoor Sculpture
The image you see here was published a few months ago on the BWOG, Columbia’s student-run campus news site. Although the caption suggests that their editorial group appreciated the skateboarder’s midnight riding skills (“color us impressed”), in fact this kind of activity on a public outdoor sculpture is one of the worst things that can […]
Jefferson in the Past
University Archives, in RBML, recently released this archival photograph showing the back of Thomas Jefferson by William Ordway Partridge (1861-1930). This statue of the third President of the United States, shown as a young man, was modeled in plaster by Partridge in 1901 and cast in bronze in 1914 by Roman Bronze Works, Inc., a […]