Constantin Meunier and Le Marteleur

Among the public outdoor sculptures on campus that were recently cleaned, conserved, and rewaxed was the figure you see here, shining in the summer sunlight outside the Engineering building: Le Marteleur (The Hammerman or Hammersmith). This sculpture is by the Belgian artist Constantin Meunier (1831-1905), who became famous in his day for figures that idealized […]

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Project from Spring 2017: Greg Wyatt, Scholars’ Lion

The following post was written by Juan Alvarez, a student in the “Public Outdoor Sculpture at Columbia and Barnard” undergraduate seminar in Spring 2017. This excerpt from his research paper discusses Columbia’s famous lion mascot and the sculpture of the lion near the entrance to the Dodge Fitness Center, installed on campus in 2004. Greg […]

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Project from Spring 2017: Auguste Rodin, The Thinker

The following post was written by Tanya Moe, a student in the “Public Outdoor Sculpture at Columbia and Barnard” undergraduate seminar in Spring 2017. This excerpt from her research paper discusses what is arguably Columbia’s most easily identifiable public sculpture on campus and how it came to be installed outside Philosophy Hall in 1931.   […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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Pan in the Past

University Archives, in the Columbia University Libraries Rare Book and Manuscript Library, recently released this archival photograph of George Grey Barnard's sculpture The Great God Pan (C00.825). As noted in a previous post, Barnard's sculpture is currently located outside Lewisohn Hall, but it was originally installed as a working fountain in a neo-Pompeiian grotto called […]

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