Bust of Sylvette

Last updated

Bust of Sylvette
Bust of Sylvette 2012.jpg
Artist Pablo Picasso, Carl Nesjar
Year1968
MediumConcrete
Dimensions36 x 20 x 12.5 (ft)
LocationNew York, New York

Bust of Sylvette is a large sculpture located in New York City's University Village, designed by Pablo Picasso and built by his collaborator Carl Nesjar. Constructed in 1968, the sculpture was declared a New York City landmark in 2008 along with the surrounding buildings. [1]

Contents

Like Sylvette in Rotterdam, Netherlands, Bust of Sylvette is a sculpture inspired by Lydia Corbett, who was his muse for over 60 portraits in 1954.

Background and construction

Bust of Sylvette was sculpted by the Norwegian artist Carl Nesjar in 1968 based on a design by Pablo Picasso, who had created a 2-foot-high (0.61 m) folded-metal version of the sculpture in 1954. [2] [3] I. M. Pei, the architect of University Village in New York City, had first become acquainted with Nesjar in 1958, [4] [5] when Nesjar had showed Pei some of his betograve artworks (in which concrete was sandblasted to create different textures). [6] Picasso met Corbett near his studio in Vallauris, France in 1954, when she was 19 years old. Intrigued by her unique look, she became his muse for three months that same year and it's said that the ensuing Sylvette series was the inspiration "that launched a thousand French ponytails." [7] Corbett's inspiration was not limited to France, however, as seen in subsequent sculptures. Like Rotterdam's Sylvette, New York's Bust of Sylvette was inspired by Picasso's original portraits and constructed using the betograve technique that Nesjar pioneered. [8]

In November 1967, New York University commissioned Nesjar to create Bust of Sylvette for the University Village complex's courtyard. [9] [10] A model of the sculpture was being displayed at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) at the time, and two MoMA trustees—the art collector Allan D. Emil and his wife Kate—agreed to finance the construction of a full-sized artwork. [10] [11] [12] A concrete foundation pad was installed in the complex's courtyard to support the weight of the 60-short-ton (54-long-ton; 54 t) sculpture. [10] [13] Bust of Sylvette was dedicated on December 9, 1968. [14] [2]

Description

The sculpture measures 36 feet (11 m) high and weighs 60 short tons (54 long tons; 54 t). [14] [2] [15] The sculpture is 20 feet (6.1 m) long at its widest point, and it is carved out of a slab measuring 12.5 inches (320 mm) thick. [2] [16] The figure is a sculpture in-the-round of the head, neck, and shoulders of a woman named Sylvette David, [17] [18] who is depicted with a pigtail. [10] [19] The sculpture includes black-stone basalt pebbles imported from Norway. Before the basalt pebbles were added to the sculpture, they were placed in watertight wooden boxes, which were then shaken to ensure that there were as few air pockets as possible. The spaces between the basalt were then filled with cement grout, and the resulting aggregate was then coated with in buff-colored cement. [10] [12] Parts of the cement are engraved, revealing pieces of the aggregate beneath it. [9] [11] [15] Unlike Rotterdam's Sylvette, Bust of Sylvette is constructed in a pinwheel shape, matching the surrounding buildings. [8]

Bust of Sylvette was originally intended for Kips Bay Towers, which Pei had also designed; however, Kips Bay Towers' developer William Zeckendorf had rejected the piece. [20] [4] Early drawings for Society Hill in Philadelphia indicate that a similar artwork was also planned for that development, though the piece was never executed there. [4] In addition to serving as a lawn decoration, the sculpture was intended to emphasize University Village's pinwheel layout. [21] A further plan by Christo and Jeanne-Claude in 1972 to wrap the sculpture in brown fabric was never completed. [17]

Significance and legacy

Both the sculpture and its surrounding buildings were designated New York City landmarks in 2008. [22] [23] [24]

Bust of Sylvette was the second outdoor sculpture by Picasso to be built in the Western Hemisphere, following the unnamed sculpture at Chicago's Richard J. Daley Center. [10] [25] Bust of Sylvette is one of two concrete sculptures designed in collaboration between Nesjar and Picasso worldwide and is the sole outdoor Picasso piece in New York City. [26]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greenwich Village</span> Neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City

Greenwich Village, or simply the Village, is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village also contains several subsections, including the West Village west of Seventh Avenue and the Meatpacking District in the northwest corner of Greenwich Village.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum</span> Art museum in Manhattan, New York

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It hosts a permanent collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions throughout the year. It was established by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1939 as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, under the guidance of its first director, Hilla von Rebay. The museum adopted its current name in 1952, three years after the death of its founder Solomon R. Guggenheim. It continues to be operated and owned by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">28 Liberty Street</span> Office skyscraper in Manhattan, New York

28 Liberty Street, formerly known as One Chase Manhattan Plaza, is a 60-story International Style skyscraper between Nassau, Liberty, William, and Pine Streets in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. The building, designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), opened in 1961. It is 813 feet (248 m) tall.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bronx Community College</span> Public college in the Bronx, New York City, US

The Bronx Community College of the City University of New York (BCC) is a public community college in the Bronx, New York City. It is part of the City University of New York system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">140 Broadway</span> Office skyscraper in Manhattan, New York

140 Broadway is a 51-story International Style office building on the east side of Broadway between Cedar and Liberty streets in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. The building was designed by Gordon Bunshaft, of the firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and consists of a mostly smooth black facade on a trapezoidal plot. It is approximately 688 feet (210 m) tall, with approximately 1.17 million rentable square feet (109,000 m2). It is known for the distinctive sculpture at its entrance, Isamu Noguchi's Cube.

<i>Sylvette</i> Sculpture by Pablo Picasso and Carl Nesjar

Sylvette is a large concrete sculpture created by Pablo Picasso and the Norwegian artist Carl Nesjar, which was erected in the city of Rotterdam in 1970. It is located on the corner of Westersingel next to the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. The sculpture portrays a young woman with a ponytail. The model for the sculpture was Sylvette David, whom Picasso met in 1953 when she was 19. The sculpture was produced following the creation of a series of artworks, known as the Sylvette series, that Picasso made of his muse in a variety of artistic styles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chicago Picasso</span> Sculpture by Pablo Picasso

The Chicago Picasso is an untitled monumental sculpture by Pablo Picasso in Daley Plaza in Chicago, Illinois. The 1967 installation of The Picasso, "precipitated an aesthetic shift in civic and urban planning, broadening the idea of public art beyond the commemorative."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Low Memorial Library</span> Building at Columbia University in Manhattan, New York

The Low Memorial Library is a building at the center of Columbia University's Morningside Heights campus in Upper Manhattan in New York City. The building, located near 116th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, was designed by Charles Follen McKim of the firm McKim, Mead & White. The building was constructed between 1895 and 1897 as the university's central library, although it has contained the university's central administrative offices since 1934. Columbia University president Seth Low funded the building with $1 million and named the edifice in memory of his father, Abiel Abbot Low. Low's facade and interior are New York City designated landmarks, and the building is also designated as a National Historic Landmark.

The urban campus of New York University (NYU) is located in Manhattan, and is around Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, and also is in MetroTech Center in Downtown Brooklyn. NYU is one of the top three largest landowners in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation</span> Organization in New York City

Village Preservation is a nonprofit organization that advocates for the architectural preservation and cultural preservation in several neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Founded in 1980, it has advocated for New York City designated landmark status for a variety of sites like the Stonewall Inn and Webster Hall. The organization and its Executive Director, Andrew Berman, have been described as influential in New York real estate, while some of its activities to prevent development and to support restrictive zoning have attracted criticism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University Village (Manhattan)</span> Development in Manhattan, New York

University Village is a building complex owned by New York University in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. University Village includes three residential towers built in the 1960s: 505 LaGuardia Place, a housing cooperative, and 100 Bleecker Street and 110 Bleecker Street, which house NYU faculty and graduate students. The buildings were designed by modern architects James Ingo Freed and I. M. Pei, and they surround a central plaza featuring the Bust of Sylvette sculpture by Carl Nesjar and Pablo Picasso. The complex also includes the John A. Paulson Center, a multipurpose building at 181 Mercer Street that was completed in 2021. The complex's original buildings and courtyard are a New York City designated landmark.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gould Memorial Library</span> Building in the Bronx, New York

The Gould Memorial Library is a building on the campus of Bronx Community College (BCC), an institution of the City University of New York (CUNY), in University Heights, Bronx, New York City, United States. The building was designed by Stanford White of the firm McKim, Mead & White. Constructed between 1895 and 1900 as the central library of New York University (NYU)'s Bronx campus, it was part of the New York University Libraries system. The library is named after railroad magnate Jay Gould, whose daughter Helen Miller Shepard funded the project in his memory. Gould is no longer used as a library, instead serving primarily as an event space. Gould's facade and interior are New York City designated landmarks, and it is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kips Bay Towers</span> Residential buildings in Manhattan, New York

Kips Bay Towers is a 1,118-unit, two-building condominium complex in the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The complex was designed by architects I.M. Pei and S. J. Kessler, with the involvement of James Ingo Freed, in the brutalist style and completed in 1965. Originally known as Kips Bay Plaza, the project was developed by Webb & Knapp as middle-income rental apartments, but was converted to condominiums in the mid-1980s.

Betograve is a type of concrete sculpting. A document published by the Nasher Sculpture Center says that betograve "...involves first pouring concrete into a form tightly packed with gravel, and, once set, precisely sand-blasting the surface of the concrete to expose the gravel beneath it". This "unique system of concrete placement" was first used by Carl Nesjar, a Norwegian painter, printmaker and sculptor. When Nesjar introduced the technique to Pablo Picasso, Picasso created a sculpture based on his folded sheet metal "Head of a Woman". The resulting piece "inaugurated a working relationship between Picasso and Nesjar that produced twenty-four works and lasted for the rest of Picasso's life".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carl Nesjar</span> Norwegian painter, sculptor and printmaker

Carl Nesjar was a Norwegian painter, sculptor and graphic artist. He is best known for his collaborations with Pablo Picasso; serving for nearly twenty years as Picasso's chosen fabricator — the artist who turned Picasso's drawings and scale models into large public sculptures. One such work was Picasso's Regjeringskvartalet murals which are located in Oslo, the city where Nesjar lived for most of his life. He is also known for his series of "Ice Fountains” which can be found in cities around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grey Art Museum</span> University art museum in New York, New York

The Grey Art Museum, known until 2023 as the Grey Art Gallery, is New York University's fine art museum. As a university art museum, the Grey Art Gallery functions to collect, preserve, study, document, interpret, and exhibit the evidence of human culture. While these goals are common to all museums, the Grey distinguishes itself by emphasizing art's historical, cultural, and social contexts, with experimentation and interpretation as integral parts of programmatic planning. Thus, in addition to being a place to view the objects of material culture, the Gallery serves as a museum-laboratory in which a broader view of an object's environment enriches our understanding of its contribution to civilization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diana Widmaier Picasso</span> French art historian

Diana Widmaier Picasso is a French art historian specialized in modern art, living in Paris.

<i>Figure découpée</i> Outdoor sculpture by Pablo Picasso

Figure découpée or L'oiseau is an abstract sculpture by Pablo Picasso: there are a total of three Figure découpée sculptures. There is one located in Vondelpark NL, another on the campus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States and another is in Helsingborg Sweden. The sculpture is a depiction of a bird, but it is commonly referred to as flat bird, flat fish or fish statue.

References

  1. ↑ "Bust of Sylvette". NYU. NYU. Retrieved November 26, 2024.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Canaday, John (December 10, 1968). "A 60-Ton Concrete Picasso Is Dedicated at N.Y.U." The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on September 28, 2024. Retrieved September 23, 2024.
  3. ↑ "Sylvette David". Anthony Petullo Collection. 2009. Archived from the original on August 30, 2017. Retrieved July 14, 2009.
  4. 1 2 3 Landmarks Preservation Commission 2008 , p. 11.
  5. ↑ Fairweather 1982 , p. 63.
  6. ↑ Fairweather 1982 , p. 27.
  7. ↑ "Sylvette, 1954 by Picasso". PabloPicasso.org. Retrieved November 26, 2024.
  8. 1 2 "October 17, 1967 – "Sylvette" gets the go-ahead". VillagePreservation.org. Village Preservation. Retrieved November 26, 2024.
  9. 1 2 "Monuments: Sylvette at N.Y.U." TIME.com. November 24, 1967. Archived from the original on September 23, 2024. Retrieved September 23, 2024.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Margold, Jane (November 16, 1967). "60-Ton Picasso Sculpture Due for City". Newsday. p. 3A. ISSN   2574-5298. ProQuest   915332748.
  11. 1 2 "NYU Given Big Sculpture by Picasso". Los Angeles Times. November 16, 1967. pp. A2. ISSN   0458-3035. ProQuest   155737202.
  12. 1 2 "A Picasso Will Rise 36 Feet Above Bleecker St". The New York Times. November 17, 1967. ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on September 23, 2024. Retrieved September 23, 2024.
  13. ↑ Shepard, Richard F. (January 30, 1968). "Picasso Trusts His 'Right Arm' to Work Alone; Carl Nesjar Is Hard at Work On a 60-Ton Concrete Bust In Greenwich Village". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on September 23, 2024. Retrieved September 23, 2024.
  14. 1 2 "Dedicate Outdoor Sculpture". The Ithaca Journal. December 12, 1968. p. 22. Archived from the original on September 23, 2024. Retrieved September 23, 2024– via newspapers.com.
  15. 1 2 Stern, Mellins & Fishman 1995 , p. 236.
  16. ↑ "NYU Given Big Sculpture by Picasso". Los Angeles Times. November 16, 1967. pp. A2. ISSN   0458-3035. ProQuest   155737202.
  17. 1 2 Higgins Quasebarth & Partners, LLC (June 2008). "University Village" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved July 2, 2009.
  18. ↑ Amateau, Albert (July 2, 2008). "How much of N.Y.U. superblock to landmark is issue". amNewYork. Archived from the original on September 28, 2024. Retrieved September 26, 2024.
  19. ↑ Shirey, David L. (November 24, 1970). "Dubuffet Is Doing 40-Foot Sculpture for Chase Plaza". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on August 8, 2018. Retrieved September 23, 2024.
  20. ↑ Wiseman 2001 , p. 63.
  21. ↑ Landmarks Preservation Commission 2008 , p. 10.
  22. ↑ Chan, Sewell (November 18, 2008). "Pei's University Village Tops List of 7 Landmarks". City Room. Archived from the original on September 18, 2024. Retrieved September 19, 2024.
  23. ↑ Brown, Eliot (November 18, 2008). "Pei-Designed Silver Towers Win Landmark Status". Observer. Archived from the original on December 2, 2023. Retrieved September 26, 2024.
  24. ↑ Amateau, Albert (November 18, 2008). "All of Silver Towers complex is golden in the view of Landmarks". amNewYork. Archived from the original on September 28, 2024. Retrieved September 26, 2024.
  25. ↑ Chan, Sewell (February 11, 2008). "I. M. Pei's Silver Towers Could Become a Landmark". City Room. Archived from the original on September 22, 2024. Retrieved September 22, 2024.
  26. ↑ "Bust of Sylvette". cultureNOW. cultureNOW. Retrieved November 26, 2024.

Sources

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.