Joslyn's Peter Kiewit Foundation Sculpture Garden. Photo
courtesy of HDR Architecture, Inc.; © Tom Kessler Photography
Visit Joslyn Art
Museum's
Peter Kiewit Foundation Sculpture
Garden & Discovery
Garden.
Garden hours: Daily 7 am to 11 pm, year
round.
Garden admission:
Free.
Joslyn Art Museum's campus features two
distinct sculpture gardens —one contiguous to the grand marble
staircase and expansive glass atrium on the east and one created
with our younger visitors in mind north of the building, where
child-friendly sculpture meets plenty of wide open space to run and
play. Over 20 sculptures are presented in these outdoor galleries.
Make the gardens part of your next visit or a destination in and of
themselves, for studying, picnicking, or just a well-deserved "time
out."
NEW!
Moment (1981, painted
aluminum) by Albert Paley (American, born 1944), a long-term loan
from Gerald Peters Gallery (Santa Fe, NM), is located on the
southwest corner of Joslyn’s campus (on the Museum grounds near the
intersection of 24th and Dodge Streets). The over-fourteen-foot
steel sculpture is the inaugural work for Joslyn's program of
changing outdoor sculpture.
Albert Paley is the first metal sculptor to receive the coveted
Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Institute of
Architects, the AIA's
highest award to a non-architect. He began his artistic career as a
jeweler – one of
the major goldsmiths of the studio art movement in America. Best
known today for his large-scale sculpture, he has been heralded for
his inventive approach to form development and metal technique. The
site-specific metal assemblages Paley has created over the past
three decades place him not only in the forefront of contemporary
sculpture, but also in the vanguard of artists working in the new,
genre-defying area that has been called "Archisculpture." His
inclusion in this group is due to his skill in merging boundaries
between the two disciplines and his innovative experiments with
environmental and formal considerations.
Opening August 7
in Joslyn's
contemporary galleries is an exhibition celebrating Paley's diverse and significant
body of work, his virtuosity as a monumental sculptor, and the
completion and dedication of his gateway to Council Bluffs at the
24th Street bridge. The work was commissioned by the Iowa West
Foundation as part of their nationally acclaimed Public Art
Initiative. Preliminary and working drawings, site plans,
photographs, videos demonstrating methods and materials of
construction, and maquettes illustrate the artist's process in conceptualizing
and creating his projects. The exhibition will be on view through September 26.
Peter Kiewit Foundation Sculpture Garden
Situated between the Museum and Central High School
on the east side, the Peter Kiewit Foundation Sculpture Garden is
1.2 acres divided into distinct garden galleries, surrounded by a
low, defining wall of Lake Superior Green granite with a honed
surface that is smooth and reflective. The dramatic Sydney Cate
Family Fountain Wall in memory of Betty G. Cate comprises 83 feet of
this perimeter wall and features a dynamic flow of water that
buffers noise from the surrounding urban environment.
The garden is named in honor of legendary Omaha builder Peter Kiewit
and the private philanthropic trust he created at the time of his
death in 1979, the Peter Kiewit Foundation. The Foundation awards
grants in Omaha and across Nebraska and western Iowa. Mr. Kiewit served as a trustee of Joslyn Art Museum from 1959 to 1974.
Coincidentally, it was his family's construction business which
built Joslyn's Memorial Building in the late 1920s. The Peter Kiewit
Foundation was formed in 1979 strictly from Mr. Kiewit's personal
estate and is the product of his own design and direction. It is not
connected legally or administratively in any way with the company
which continues to carry his name.
Above:Sydney Cate Family Fountain Wall in memory of
Betty G. Cate.
Photo
courtesy of HDR Architecture, Inc.; © Tom Kessler Photography
A statue of a Sioux warrior on a rearing
horse, proposed and modeled by Serbian-born sculptorJohn David Brcin (1899–1983) in the late 1920s for the entrance to the Joslyn
Memorial (now Joslyn Art Museum), is the signature work of art
in the Robert B. Daugherty Entry Plaza of the Peter Kiewit Foundation Sculpture Garden.
John David
Brcin (American, born Serbia,
1899–1983), Sioux
Warrior, 1935–36/2008, bronze,
realized by Matthew Placzek
(American, born 1964), Museum
purchase, 2008. Photo
courtesy of HDR Architecture, Inc.; © Tom Kessler Photography |
Omaha sculptor
Matthew Placzek
was
commissioned to realize Brcin’s work. Fifteen feet high, the
5,000-pound bronze sculpture, titled
Sioux Warrior, sits atop a six-foot base of concrete encased in Lake
Superior Green granite to the east of the Joslyn building on axis
with the Walter and Suzanne Scott Pavilion. The Art Deco-style
horse and Indian rider face north toward Joslyn’s parking
garden. The sculpture was cast and assembled at the Loveland Bronze
Services foundry in Loveland,
Colorado, and installed at Joslyn on
October 20, 2008. |
Running east west through the sculpture garden, on
axis with the ConAgra Foods Atrium, is The Omaha Riverscape,
an installation by American granite sculptor
Jesús Moroles
(born 1950) of Rockport, Texas. Central to the installation is the
118-foot long, 25-foot wide Charles and Mary Heider Reflecting
Pool. The floor of the pool is a landscape sculpture in 50 tons
of Academy Black granite — a topographical "map" of a section of the
Missouri River and one of its tributaries, the Platte River. The
pool fills and drains in continuous daily rotation to simulate the
rise and fall of the river throughout
the seasons.
Jesús Moroles
(American, born 1950), The Omaha Riverscape, 2008–09,
granite and water installation with Academy Black granite reflecting
pool; three column fountains of Mountain Red, Carnelian, and Dakota
Mahogany granite; and Dakota Mahogany granite water wall; Museum
purchase with funds from the Patron Circle for Contemporary Art and
Ted and Helen Kolderie, 2009. Photo courtesy of HDR Architecture,
Inc.; © Tom Kessler Photography.
Rising from the west end of the pool are three
column fountains. Each eleven-foot tall, one and one-half foot
square column is a different type of granite — Mountain Red,
Carnelian, and Dakota Mahogany — with water bubbling from the top.
Capping the pool on its east end is the Broken Earth water wall.
Eight and one-half tons of Dakota Mahogany granite adhere to a
concrete core 26 feet wide, and 12 feet tall, water flowing in a
continuous cascade from its top.
Joslyn's installation is Moroles' first public
commission in Nebraska.
Four outdoor galleries comprise the
sculpture garden. Garden Gallery 1, east of the
Museum's Scott Pavilion, is divided into smaller intimate
spaces while the southernmost area of the garden, spanning the Memorial building's east side,
features three distinct spaces: the Willis A. Strauss Family
Garden Gallery; Garden Gallery III, a
more open space on axis
with the grand staircase; and
Garden Gallery IV. Nine sculptures are presently on
view in these galleries. Details are shown below. Click on the
artists' names for more information.
At the
northwest corner of the campus, the Discovery Garden is an
innovative, interactive outdoor space. Each of the garden’s four corners represents a tenet
of Discovery – Creation, Inspiration, Exploration, and Education. At
the confluence of these, in the garden center, lives Imagination.
Fun and fanciful sculptures by nationally and internationally
recognized artists dot the space. The exciting entrance to the
space, Noodles & Doodles (by Matthew Placzek) attracts
children the moment they arrive.
Omaha
sculptor Ron Parks created Pencil Bench
and 22 1/2 Degrees with Crayon Tips
(pictured left, Museum purchase with funds provided by Dr. and Mrs.
Stanley Truhlsen, 2009).
Artist and educator Peter Carter made Cubular (Museum purchase with funds
provided by Dr. and Mrs. Stanley Truhlsen, 2009),
a simple game that allows participants
to create unique pixilated images with thick blocks of glass
arranged in a frame. A new image is created each time the game is
played. Lights beneath the board add another dimension to the piece
at night.
Zimbabwean sculptor
Bernard Matemera's Metamorphosis (pictured below, Gift of Richard
and Frances Juro, 2007) is a green-hued serpentine stone figure
typical of his African neo-expressionism represented in enormous and
deliberately grotesque dimensions. Matemera was a founding member of
the Shona Tengenenge Sc
ulpture Village and was for many years the
symbolic leader of that community.
George Sugarman's Yellow Ascending
has been a signature sculpture outdoors at Joslyn for many
years. In its third location since the Museum's acquired it in 1983,
Yellow Ascending is an outstanding example of Sugarman's
ability to translate his love of movement, color, and structure into
a monumental metal sculpture. The piece is 30 feet tall and weighs
16,000 pounds.
In the Discovery Garden, it is surrounded by an Omega Sandstone
amphitheater.
In the Discovery Garden's northeast corner is Patrick
Dougherty's Story-Telling Hut (pictured Discovery
Garden header,
Museum purchase with funds provided by Dr. and Mrs. Stanley Truhlsen,
2009).
For Joslyn’s "stickwork" installation, the
Museum partnered with Fontenelle Forest Nature Center in Bellevue,
Neale Woods in Omaha, the city of Omaha and the Storz Expressway
Pumping Station, and the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. To make
his sculpture, Dougherty visited
locations to select indigenous materials for his sculpture:
roughleaf dogwood (Cornus drummondii)
saplings and willow saplings. Larger trees, 20–25 feet tall,
were selected to form the natural armature of tje piece, with smaller, more pliable saplings woven together
with the assistance of many local volunteers to complete the
structure.
Click here to read more about this unique temporary installation.
More Sculpture on the Museum Grounds
The parking garden is located on the north side of the campus,
running parallel to Davenport Street. It is accessible from the
Dodge Street entrance or from 24th Sreet along the north drive. It
is completely accessible. The parking garden offers an innovative
approach to parking areas, incorporating landscaped islands and
original works of art into its design:
Sidney Buchanan's Pawn is
located in the
northeast corner and a red aluminum work (pictured
left) by
John Henry graces the middle of the space. Sculpture is also located on the west side of campus. The
Evelyn A. Veach Atrium Garden is located at the west end of
the ConAgra Foods Atrium. This area of beautiful trees, grasses, and
plantings enhances the beauty of the glass space and provides a
lovely view for diners in Joslyn's Café Durham.
Josiah Manzi's sculpture Generations
is featured here. The tree-lined
24th Street entrance drive features floral islands
and
Kenneth Snelson's Able Charlie (pictured above right).