Interior Murals and Sculpture
Bird Library, Second Floor Foyer The Roman goddess Diana was the protector of agriculture and the forests. Most often she is associated with the hunter Actaeon who happened upon her while she was bathing in a grotto. Startled and offended, Diana changed the hunter into a stag. Not recognizing their master, Actaeon's dogs ran him down and killed him. Anna Hyatt Huntington's Diana does not appear as the aggressive and vindictive goddess. The sculpture's tall, graceful lines are energized by the figure's spiral pose. Balanced on a sphere, she fires an arrow into the air while her dog leaps at her feet. When this sculpture was displayed in the Carnegie Library students would rub the dog's paw for good luck during the final exam period. This caused the removal of the dark surface color leaving the bright metallic appearance that visitors to Bird Library now see. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Archer Huntington |
Bowne Hall of Chemistry, Main Stairway A distinguished alumnus (G’ 34), Anthony Toney's mural is a colorful, dynamic, and meaningful composition based on traditional and contemporary subjects. Numerous portraits of scientists, philosophers, poets, and artists are assembled around a DaVinci inspired view of man and woman, an image of the Tower of Babel, and a recently discovered spiral galaxy. The painting depicts men and women who observe, identify, and define theoretical explanations for natural phenomena. According to Toney, "The mural is a symbol of man's aspirations to discover and solve problems- a symbol of progress defined by the multiple activities of creative mankind." The Syracuse University Art Collection maintains numerous oil sketches made by the artist as preparatory studies for the mural. |
Crouse College, Main lobby In 1873 Syracuse University became the first educational institution in the United States to offer a baccalaureate degree for the study of Fine Arts. The young University was not able to collect and exhibit important works of art so copies were made and displayed around campus for the enjoyment and enrichment of students and faculty. This copy of the classic Greek sculpture is a rare object and Syracuse is fortunate that it has survived in good condition. The original sculpture stood on the prow of a victorious ship that was built as a monument overlooking a deep gorge and facing northward out to sea. The statue could be seen from a great distance.
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Crouse College, North Entrance Stained glass is usually associated with religious subject matter and spiritual renewal. These windows were installed as part of the University's centennial celebration in 1970 and were designed to suggest that the second century of education at Syracuse would provide a revitalization of the goals and values upon which the University was founded. Richard Wolff and three undergraduate students in the School of Art designed and fabricated these windows at the north entrance to Crouse College. Wolff had been a Visiting Fellow in Stained Glass at the Royal of College of Art in 1966 and 1967 before coming to Syracuse as an Associate Professor of painting, drawing, and stained glass. |
Flint Hall Lounge, Mt. Olympus Robert Marx is a former faculty member of the Syracuse University School of Art (1958-1966). Inspired by nature and landscape, Marx expresses his ideas about these basic forces through the emotional power of color and form. Rather than depict the tension between good and evil as two diametrically opposed forces, the artist designed an image that obscures the division between them. Aspects of each force are reproduced with slight modifications throughout the entire mural to show the inter-relationship between the two forces. The painting has also been skillfully adapted to the location. The mural's brightest colors are located closest to the available natural light. Marx's palette darkens and grows more somber as he moves towards that end which is illuminated by artificial sources of light. |
Arnold Grant Law Auditorium, Foyer Mestrovic designed this sculpture as a monument to Socrates, the great teacher of ancient Greece. Socrates espoused a method of teaching that encouraged students to find the truth by questioning accepted notions or thoughts. While the Socratic method may no longer be as popular as it once was, the search for truth and knowledge is at the core of the University's mission. Of particular interest to Mestrovic, and at the core of his work, was the potency of truth and the dedication of those who seek it. The artist had planned a monumental version of this sculpture for the Syracuse campus but it was never completed. The large Moses bas-relief in the sculpture court between Bowne Hall and the Shaffer Art Building is similar in concept to the unrealized version of Socrates and His Disciples. Gift of Chancellor William Pearson Tolley |
Hendricks Chapel, Ground Floor This mural is the work of a 1968 graduate of the Syracuse University School of Art. The artist used symbols of destruction and creation, darkness and light, despair and rebirth, to create a statement about education expressed in its religious dimension. Painted on a curved wall with dramatic lighting effects, the room and mural were specially designed for personal contemplation. |
Heroy Geology Building Lebrun painted Crucifixion for his exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1950. It is actually a triptych that restated several themes examined in other paintings that Lebrun completed for the exhibition including The Deposition, Witness of The Resurrection, and The Centurion's Horse. The subject of Crucifixion captured Rico Lebrun's imagination for an extended period in the late 1940s and he completed several hundred drawings and paintings about the passion of Christ. Lebrun stated "My choice of the theme, Crucifixion, was prompted by the constantly repeated history of man's blindness and inhumanity." Although rooted in the tradition of figurative painting, Lebrun has created these images with excited paint surfaces, unorthodox materials, and dramatic emotional content, heralding the Abstract Expressionist movement that took hold in the 1950s. Crucifixion came to Syracuse as a gift of the William C. Whitney Foundation in 1958, while The Cross and Ladder of the Cross were gifts of Mrs. Constance Lebrun Crown. |
Heroy Geology Building The artists that created these works are faculty, staff, and students in the School of Architecture or the College of Visual and Performing Arts (Department of Art, Department of Transmedia, and Foundation.) Commissioned by the iSchool at Syracuse University
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Heroy Geology Building The artists that created these works are faculty, staff, and students in the School of Architecture or the College of Visual and Performing Arts (Department of Art, Department of Transmedia, and Foundation.) Commissioned by the iSchool at Syracuse University
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Hinds Hall, First Floor Commissioned by the iSchool at Syracuse University |
Hinds Hall, First Floor Commissioned by the iSchool at Syracuse University
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Hinds Hall, First Floor Commissioned by the iSchool at Syracuse University |
Hinds Hall, First Floor The artists that created these works are faculty, staff, and students in the School of Architecture or the College of Visual and Performing Arts (Department of Art, Department of Transmedia, and Foundation.) Commissioned by the iSchool at Syracuse University |
Hinds Hall, First Floor
Commissioned by the iSchool at Syracuse University
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Hinds Hall, First Floor The artists that created these works are faculty, staff, and students in the School of Architecture or the College of Visual and Performing Arts (Department of Art, Department of Transmedia, and Foundation.) Commissioned by the iSchool at Syracuse University |
Hinds Hall, First Floor The artists that created these works are faculty, staff, and students in the School of Architecture or the College of Visual and Performing Arts (Department of Art, Department of Transmedia, and Foundation.) Commissioned by the iSchool at Syracuse University |
Errol Willett (American) The artists that created these works are faculty, staff, and students in the School of Architecture or the College of Visual and Performing Arts (Department of Art, Department of Transmedia, and Foundation.) Commissioned by the iSchool at Syracuse University |
Huntington Beard Crouse Hall, Foyer of Gifford Auditorium The changing light levels in the lobby of HBC influence the visual characteristics of the Syracuse Nova. Natural light enters from the north and south facing windows and is reflected by the numerous metal rods that make up the sculpture. These rods vary in length and intersect each other at many different angles, heightening the interplay of light and dark areas within the sculpture. In addition to designing art that depends upon the interplay of light and reflective surfaces, Harry Bertoia was also noted for creating sculpture that produced sound. A gift of Chi Omega Sorority, Upsilon Alpha Chapter, this piece was commissioned specifically for this location. |
Lawrinson Hall, Penthouse Lobby This mural depicts the annual meeting of trappers and Native Americans in the early 19th century when there was an exchange of furs and food. The painting is a study for larger murals that were installed in dining halls at the Jackson Lake Lodge at Grand Teton National Park. Those murals, 11 in all, were 8 foot high panels that covered almost 700 square feet of wall space. They were exhibited at Syracuse University in 1959 before being shipped to Wyoming. Carl Roters was an Associate Professor in the School of Art and also painted murals for the city of Syracuse. |
Life Sciences Complex Commissioned in 2008 as a tribute to Dr. Cathryn R.Newton, 15th dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and the University’s first professor of interdisciplinary sciences. |
Maxwell Hall, Main Foyer This is a full-scale replica of the marble statue by Houdon that now stands at the State Capitol building in Richmond, Virginia. Houdon was a leading sculptor in France and Thomas Jefferson, who was American Minister to that country, prevailed upon the artist to make this portrait of the first President. The artist modeled his image of Washington after the Roman senator Cincinnatus who had been a gentleman farmer until his country needed his services as a warrior. Houdon however refused to dress Washington in a Roman outfit as Jefferson had hoped and instead created this noble, dignified image of the General in his regimental uniform. |
Samuel I. Newhouse Communications Center - Interior Court According to legend, Pegasus, the winged horse, stopped to rest on Mt. Olympus. When his hoofs touched the ground four springs of water formed and from these springs the Muses were born. In 1944 Lipchitz was working on a Pegasus sculpture when he learned of the legend. According to Greek mythology the Muses were any of nine goddesses that presided over the liberal arts and sciences, especially music, poetry, and art. This is a variation of an earlier bronze, Birth of the Muses from the John D. Rockefeller III Collection of New York City that is now installed at the New York State Theater in Lincoln Center. Among contemporary sculptors the international reputation of Lipchitz is well known and the architect, I. M. Pei especially chose this work to dramatize the entrance hall of his first building at the Newhouse Communications complex. |
Shaw Dormitory Dining Hall One of the famous mural painters of the Mexican renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s, Charlot was a visiting artist during the spring of 1960. His intention was to create an image that embodied the two primary cultures that make up Mexican life, Indian and Spanish. Village Fiesta is a narrative mural that begins at the left with the pre-dawn cooking and a child taking his first steps. Next are the scenes of the tortilla lesson, hair braiding, and the child playing with a rattle. In the lower center a mother encourages her daughter to participate in the festival dance, the Dance of the Malinches, which unfolds at the right. This dance represents the two cultures in competition with each other; Malinches was the mistress of Cortez who fought with the wives of the Indian chiefs. While the Spanish may have won political control over the people, the artist wants to remind us that the Indian culture was never extinguished. |
SU Art Galleries, Shaffer Art Building, South Wall This may be the most politically charged mural on campus since it was an artistic statement that included references to a specific event and the universal fears that mankind was learning to endure in the age of nuclear weapons. The mural is divided into three segments; the mandorla like form at the left refers to the self-immolation of a Buddhist monk in 1965. This supreme act of protest gained worldwide attention, as did the napalm bombing of villages during the early stages of the Vietnam War. The dark form in the center symbolizes the latter event while the fragmented forms at right were meant to represent the destructive potential of nuclear weapons. The foreboding colors and the suggestion of the American flag at the right of the image helped to create controversy at the unveiling of the mural in 1966. Adja Yunkers was an abstract expressionist painter who spent 1966 on the Syracuse campus as an artist in residence. Also known for his powerful prints, Yunkers work is in many important museum collections. |
Exterior Murals and Sculptures
Bray Hall, North Lawn This statue was presented in 1974 to Syracuse University along with several other smaller sculptures, and many of the personal and business papers of the artist. The Huntington's had a long history of generosity to Syracuse University beginning in 1932 with a gift of the sculpture Diana of the Chase and 13,000 acres of Adirondack forest. The land was held in trust for the then New York State College of Forestry and is now known as the Archer and Anna Huntington Wildlife Forest Station. A smaller version of this statue was on view at the Illinois State pavilion of the New York World's Fair of 1963. It was seen and admired by the Austrian Minister of Education who must have been impressed with Anna Hyatt Huntington's vision of the young Lincoln. Lincoln is shown reading a book while riding on horseback to visit his clients in the towns and countryside around Springfield, Illinois. The artist presented the sculpture as a gift to the people of Austria and it now resides in a park near Salzburg. |
Crouse College, Northwest Corner Maxwell Chayat was an artist in residence in 1975 when Sentinel was designed and constructed. He was known for his abstract, nonfigurative designs and Judaic ritual art objects that have been collected worldwide. Chayat usually avoided titles because they might suggest representative associations for his art. Sentinel, however, seems to be an appropriate title because the sculpture does convey an idea of the intellectual guardianship of the arts as it stands in front of Crouse College, the home of the College of Visual and Performing Arts. While working on Sentinel, Chayat was assisted by his son who was an undergraduate student at Syracuse. This sculpture was a gift of the artist and is in memory of his son Jonathan Chayat who died a short time after the sculpture was completed. |
Arnold Grant Law Auditorium, Exterior: West Wall The sculptor, a native of Minnesota and graduate of the Minneapolis School of Art, was a winner of the prestigious Prix de Rome (1926) and Parisian Beaux Arts (1925) competitions. Mr. Kiselewski has received numerous commissions for architectural decorations, especially in the Midwest. The architect Mr. Lorimer Rich, the auditorium’s donor Mr. Arnold Grant, and the Chancellor of Syracuse University Dr. William Tolley greatly admired his work. The theme of the sculpture was selected because Moses is credited with codifying a program for national and individual morality based upon religion. This program became the foundation of Western law and is, in large measure, based on the Judeo- Christian-Islamic philosophies of justice. |
Hendrick’s Chapel, West While a student athlete at Syracuse University, Ernie R. Davis (1939-1963) was the first African-American to receive the Heisman Trophy (1961) awarded annually to the most outstanding player in collegiate football. He helped lead the 1959 Orangemen to their first national championship (Syracuse defeated the University of Texas Longhorns 23-14 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas) and an undefeated season. Commissioned by the |
Hinds Hall of Engineering, Exterior, West Court Soon after immigrating to the United States in the 1920s, Chaim Gross began to carve designs directly into wood. His work respected the nature of the material offering a fluid composition. His bronze pieces freed him from the challenges of wood carving but still show many of the same aesthetics. In Dancing Mother, Gross celebrated the intimacy between mother and child by combining both figures into one form. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Saul Rosen |
Huntington Beard Crouse Hall, East Wall When Syracuse University unveiled Ben Shahn’s monumental mosaic mural, The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti, in 1967, it focused attention on one of the most politically charged murder cases in the history of American jurisprudence. In 1927, two Italian-American immigrants, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, were executed for a crime many people believed they did not commit. At the right, standing in front of Judge Webster Thayer (in the courthouse window) are members of the Lowell Commission (left to right- Judge Robert Grant, President A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard University, and President Samuel Stratton of M.I.T). After a two-month review the commission reported that, “On the whole, we are of opinion that [they were] guilty beyond reasonable doubt.” Shahn, however, uses them as representatives of the legal, political, and moral institutions of the day as they stand over the coffins of the executed men. Gift of Ben Shahn and George W. W. Brewster, J. Lionberger Davis, Leon Despres, Richard Evans II, Goddard Lieberson, Jacob Schulman, and F. Palmer Weber, in memory of Richard Evans III |
Kimmel Hall exterior This bronze was the first in a series of Syra sculptures that the artist produced shortly after his arrival on the Syracuse campus in 1968. Rodger Mack had received a Fulbright Grant in 1963 for study in Italy where he worked at the Academia Di Bella Arti in Florence. Syra I has soft contours, undulating lines, and an overall shape that is reminiscent of an organic form. The contours and shapes of the cast lower section are repeated in the elements that are suspended between the circular plates in the upper assembly. The sculpture is a carefully balanced design that offers the spectator changing views as one walks around the base. |
Main Quadrangle, near Hinds and Machinery Halls, Exterior First exhibited at the 1910 Paris Salon, Bourdelle’s Herakles won the artist international recognition. His design is based on the archer at the Temple of Athena at Aegina, an island off the southeast coast of Greece. In fact, Bourdelle created numerous works that were inspired by archaic and other pre-classical forms of Greek sculpture. The Syracuse bronze was cast by the Alexis Rudier Foundry for the artist’s personal collection. Traces of the original gold patina can still be seen on the bronze. Other versions are in the National Museum at Rome and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The latter version retains the original gold patina and is located in the Petrie sculpture court. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. S. I. Newhouse. |
Main Quadrangle, Physics Building, Exterior The artist, a graduate of Syracuse University's School of Art and Design, won a competition to create a sculpture honoring Dr. William R. Fredrickson, Chairman of the Physics Department (1939-1965). Wheel has a surface that is articulated with shapes reminiscent of simple tools. The forms are carefully balanced to suggest equilibrium. The imposing circular sculpture echoes the roof of Hendricks Chapel and the proportions of its parts to the whole are very classical in scale. Commissioned by the Physics Department |
Maxwell, Eggers, and Tolley Court The Lincoln sculpture was originally intended to be located in a park at the Eastern Terminus of the Lincoln Highway in New Jersey. Completed several years after Daniel Chester French’s design for the Memorial, Fraser portrays Lincoln as a young, beardless man as yet unaware of the coming conflict between the states. Fraser is best known for his design of the Buffalo/Indian head nickel and the sculpture, The End of the Trail. There is another Lincoln sculpture on ESF campus in the courtyard formed by Walters and Bray Halls. It is an equestrian statue called Young Abe Lincoln on Horseback, 1963 by Anna Hyatt Huntington. Gift of the Fraser Estate and Mrs. Oliver H. Sawyer |
Shaffer Art Building - Exterior Sculpture Court Persephone, according to Greek legend, was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. She was abducted by Hades, the god of the Underworld, and forced to become his wife. Demeter, goddess of agriculture, demanded that her daughter be returned but Zeus made a bargain with Hades allowing him to keep Persephone during the autumn and winter. The myth underscores the ancient interpretation of the seasons; nature’s fruits disappear in autumn and winter but are regained in spring and summer when Persephone is returned to world of the living. Mestrovic portrays Persephone pleading for release from the underworld. Gift of the class of 1955 |
Ivan Mestrovic (American, b. Croatia, 1883-1962) Mestrovic was considered a political provocateur in his native Croatia when a fascist Italian military force occupied the country in the early 1940s. After spending more than four months in jail, Mestrovic was released to Vatican officials so that he could undertake several commissions in Rome. During this time in Italy he made a series of drawings, among them the pleading image of Persephone and the despairing portrayal of Job. Mestrovic was stunned by his arrest and his time in prison was very hard as he thought that he might be executed at any time. Job shows the artist’s emotional straits as he gazes up at heaven and pleads for mercy. Gift of the artist |
Ivan Mestrovic (American, b. Croatia, 1883-1962) This Moses was intended as the central figure in a memorial to the 6 million Jews who were killed during World War II. The memorial was designed with Moses standing at the left, his arm outstretched over a group of bas-relief figures that are walking towards the tablets of the law on the right. The memorial, intended for placement on New York’s Riverside Drive was never completed because of financial difficulties and conflicts with the city’s Parks Commissioner, Robert Moses. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Donald Giancola and Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Spector |
College of Law, White and McNaughton Halls Court Malvina Hoffman’s most comprehensive project of her long career involved modeling more than 100 ethnic portraits for the Hall of Man at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Elemental Man appears to have much of the same strength and power that characterized her Field Museum series. The male figure struggles to free himself from solid rock in an effort that portrays man’s strength to conquer his surroundings. The sculpture was first exhibited at the New York World's Fair of 1939 where it received worldwide attention. After studying with Rodin, Hoffman traveled to Yugoslavia in the 1920s to study with Ivan Mestrovic. She was one of the principal individuals who convinced the Yugoslavian government to release Mestrovic from prison and allow him to finish his commissions at the Vatican. Hoffman also played an important role with Syracuse University Chancellor William Tolley and his decision to offer Mestrovic a faculty position after the war ended. Gift of the artist |
South Quad, near Carnegie Hall Luise Kaish designed this version of the original mascot for Syracuse University athletic teams in 1951. The Saltine Warrior embodies those qualities that students, alumni, and fans have come to expect from their athletic teams- strength, endurance, and agility. A 1946 alumna of Syracuse, Kaish was also a distinguished pupil of Ivan Mestrovic. She was commissioned to make the sculpture after winning a School of Art competition. Gift of the Class of 1951 |
South Quad, Orange Grove Park Banner is the focal point of the Alumni Orange Grove Park on the main campus. Installed in 2003, the sculpture is characteristic of Albert Paley’s cor-ten steel designs that bend and shape the metal in a manner that makes it seem much more plastic thereby altering our typical notions about this common building material. 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. Gift of Donald Hornung ’53 and Robert Hornung ‘87 |
University Place, near Crouse College In 1967 American artist Sol LeWitt wrote in his Paragraphs on Conceptual Art that the “idea becomes the machine that makes the art.” This groundbreaking statement, which became the manifesto of a movement, summed up LeWitt’s approach to art. LeWitt earned a B.F.A. degree from Syracuse University in 1949, pursued graduate work at the University of Illinois, and studied extensively throughout Europe. After serving in the Korean War, LeWitt attended what is now the School of Visual Arts in New York City. With a career spanning more than four decades and working in a variety of media, including sculpture, painting, drawing, books, and prints, LeWitt is among the most prolific and influential figures in contemporary art. His art stands at the crossroads of art and architecture, astride the Minimal and Conceptual movements. In the last decades of his life, LeWitt worked with structures, particularly blocks of concrete. Six Curved Walls (Syracuse) is typical of his desire to make work-to-order, concentrating on the architectonic challenges of each space. Spanning 140 feet on the hillside of Crouse College on the University campus, Six Curved Walls (Syracuse) consists of six undulating walls, each 12 feet high. The assemblage is constructed of concrete block, a material often used by LeWitt because of its pervasive presence and the relative ease with which it can be arranged in myriad geometric forms and shapes. For more information, log on to http://sollewitt.syr.edu. Another work by LeWitt can be seen at the Menschel Media Center at Watson Hall. The sculpture was designed and constructed to mark the inauguration of Nancy Cantor as the 11th Chancellor of Syracuse University in 2004. Thanks to Robert Menschel and Richard Menschel for their generous support of this project.
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