The National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden is the most recent addition to the
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...
in
Washington, D.C.
)
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, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
in the United States. It is located on the
National Mall
The National Mall is a Landscape architecture, landscaped park near the Downtown, Washington, D.C., downtown area of Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States. It contains and borders a number of museums of the Smithsonian Institut ...
between the National Gallery's West Building and the
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
's
National Museum of Natural History
The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7 ...
.
Completed and opened to the public on May 23, 1999, the location provides an outdoor setting for exhibiting several pieces from the museum's contemporary sculpture collection.
The collection is centered on a fountain which, from December to March, is converted to an ice-skating rink.
(Such a rink predated the construction of the garden.
) The outdoor Pavilion Café lies adjacent to the garden.
Laurie Olin
Laurie Olin (born 1938, Marshfield, Wisconsin) is an American landscape architect. He has worked on landscape design projects at diverse scales, from private residential gardens to public parks and corporate/museum campus plans.
Early life
Olin g ...
and his firm, OLIN, were the landscape architects who redesigned the garden.
Works
*
Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg (January 28, 1929 – July 18, 2022) was a Swedish-born American sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions ...
;
Coosje van Bruggen
Coosje van Bruggen (June 6, 1942 – January 10, 2009) was a Dutch-born American sculptor, art historian, and critic.Kino, Carol. January 13, 2009 ''The New York Times''. She collaborated extensively with her husband, Claes Oldenburg.
Biography ...
, ''
Typewriter Eraser, Scale X'', 1999
*
Joan Miró
Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , , ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan painter, sculptor and ceramicist born in Barcelona. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona i ...
, ''
Personnage Gothique, Oiseau-Eclair
''Personnage Gothique, Oiseau-Eclair'' is a bronze sculpture by Joan Miró.
It was created in 1974, and cast in 1977. It is in the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden
The National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden is the most recent additi ...
'', 1974/1977
*
Louise Bourgeois
Louise Joséphine Bourgeois (; 25 December 191131 May 2010) was a French-American artist. Although she is best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art, Bourgeois was also a prolific painter and printmaker. She explored a varie ...
, ''
Spider
Spiders ( order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species ...
'', 1996/1997
*
Tony Smith, ''
Wandering Rocks
In Greek mythology, the Planctae ( el, Πλαγκταὶ, ''Planktai'', "Wanderers") or Wandering Rocks were a group of rocks, between which the sea was mercilessly violent. The Argo (led by Jason) was the only ship to navigate them successfully ...
'', 1967
*
Magdalena Abakanowicz
Marta Magdalena Abakanowicz-Kosmowska (20 June 1930 – 20 April 2017) was a Polish sculptor and fiber artist. She was known for her use of textiles as a sculptural medium and her outdoor installations. She is widely regarded as one of Poland ...
, ''
Puellae'', 1992
*
Mark di Suvero
Marco Polo di Suvero (born September 18, 1933, in Shanghai, China), better known as Mark di Suvero, is an abstract expressionist sculptor and 2010 National Medal of Arts recipient.
Biography Early life and education
Marco Polo di Suvero was bor ...
, ''
Aurora
An aurora (plural: auroras or aurorae), also commonly known as the polar lights, is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of bri ...
'', 1992–93
*
Scott Burton
Scott Burton (June 23, 1939 – December 29, 1989) was an American sculptor and performance artist best known for his large-scale furniture sculptures in granite and bronze.
Early years
Burton was born in Greensboro, Alabama to Walter Scott Bu ...
, ''
Six-Part Seating'', 1985/1998
*
Joel Shapiro
Joel Shapiro (born September 27, 1941 New York City, New York) is an American sculptor renowned for his dynamic work composed of simple rectangular shapes. The artist is classified as a Minimalist as demonstrated in his works, which were mostly ...
, ''
Untitled
Untitled or (Untitled) may refer to:
Artworks
* '' Untitled (2004)'', by Banksy
* ''Untitled'' (1982 painting), by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat
* ''Untitled'' (Devil), a 1982 painting by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat
* ''Untitled ...
'', 1989
*
Ellsworth Kelly
Ellsworth Kelly (May 31, 1923 – December 27, 2015) was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker associated with hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and minimalism. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing line, c ...
, ''
Stele II'', 1973
*
Barry Flanagan
Barry Flanagan OBE RA (11 January 1941 – 31 August 2009) was an Irish-Welsh sculptor. He is best known for his bronze statues of hares and other animals.
Biography
Barry Flanagan was born on 11 January 1941 in Prestatyn, North Wales. F ...
, ''
Thinker on a Rock'', 1997
*
Sol LeWitt
Solomon "Sol" LeWitt (September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including conceptual art and minimalism.
LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and "structures" (a term he pref ...
, ''
Four-Sided Pyramid
''Four-Sided Pyramid'' is a conceptual modular "structure", by Sol LeWitt, in the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden.
The artist created a plan and ''Four-Sided Pyramid'' was constructed by others, in 1999.
See also
* List of public art ...
,'' 1965
*
Lucas Samaras, ''
Chair Transformation Number 20B'', 1996
* Tony Smith, ''
Moondog
Louis Thomas Hardin (May 26, 1916 – September 8, 1999), known professionally as Moondog, was an American composer, musician, performer, music theoretician, poet and inventor of musical instruments. Largely self-taught as a composer, his ...
'', 1964
*
David Smith, ''
Cubi XI
The ''Cubi'' series is a group of stainless steel sculptures built from cubes, rectangular solids and cylinders with spheroidal or flat endcaps. These pieces are among the last works completed by the sculptor David Smith. The artist died in a car ...
'', 1963
*David Smith, ''
Cubi XXVI'', 1965
*
Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder (; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and his ...
, ''
Cheval Rouge
''Cheval Rouge'' is an abstract sculpture by Alexander Calder.
Constructed in 1974 of painted sheet steel, it is at the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden
The National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden is the most recent addition to the Nat ...
'', 1974
*
Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Fox Lichtenstein (; October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997) was an American pop artist. During the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist among others, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. Hi ...
, ''
House I'', 1996/1998
*
George Rickey
George Warren Rickey (June 6, 1907 – July 17, 2002) was an American kinetic sculptor.
Early life and education
Rickey was born on June 6, 1907, in South Bend, Indiana. When Rickey was still a child, his father, an executive with Singer S ...
, ''
Cluster of Four Cubes'', 1992
*
Hector Guimard, ''
An Entrance to the Paris Métropolitain'', 1902/1913
*
Roxy Paine, ''
Graft
Graft or grafting may refer to:
*Graft (politics), a form of political corruption
* Graft, Netherlands, a village in the municipality of Graft-De Rijp
Science and technology
*Graft (surgery), a surgical procedure
*Grafting, the joining of plant t ...
'', 2008–2009
*
Robert Indiana, ''AMOR'', 1998/2006
References
External links
*
.S
Gardens in Washington, D.C.
Outdoor sculptures in Washington, D.C.
Sculpture gardens, trails and parks in the United States
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