Date: 1866 Sculptor: Auguste Cain Medium & size: Bronze, over lifesize. Location: Central Park Zoo, Intelligence Garden. To see it, you must pay admission for the Zoo. Once inside the…
Date: Cast in 1850; placed in Central Park in 1863 Sculptor: Christophe Fratin Medium & size: Bronze, lifesize. Location: Central Park, west of the Mall. If the city street grid…
The Arsenal has a motley past. Despite its forbidding battlements, it wasn’t designed to withstand a siege - only to store gunpowder and cannonballs so that they could be hauled…
Almost 20 years ago, I wrote a couple dozen essays on the history of painting for BeyondBooks.com, a subscription service that provided online supplementary materials for high-school students. The site’s…
This essay is adapted from Chapter 2 of Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide. I’ve kept cross-references to other chapters in the book, all of which will eventually be updated and…
The Art Institute of Chicago was established in 1879, as the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. Since 1893, its home has been a Beaux Arts building facing Michigan Drive that…
In 2011, two life-size bronze sculptures of Frederick Douglass were dedicated in New York: one at the north end of Central Park, one at the New-York Historical Society. Douglass at…
This essay is adapted from Chapter 6 of Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide. I’ve kept cross-references to other chapters in the book, all of which will eventually be updated and…
Sculptor: Milton Hebald Date: 1977 Medium & size: Bronze, over lifesize, granite pedestal. Location: Central Park, near the entrance to the Delacorte Theater, Central Park West at about 81st Street…
NOTE: As of July 2019, I'm switching supporters from Patreon to the Tip Jar on my website: details here. The problem with not being a talking head Patreon says you'll…