On Independence Day in 1810, the Society of the Cincinnati of Pennsylvania resolved to create a memorial to General George Washington, who had served as president of the organization from its founding until his death in 1799.
The original Lion Fighter sits as a companion piece to August Kiss’s Mounted Amazon Attacked by a Panther on the steps of the Altes Museum in Berlin. Philadelphia’s cast was moved to the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1929, where – as in Berlin – it accompanies a bronze cast of the Amazon.
The Medicine Man is one of four Native American sculptures that Dallin executed. It was exhibited in the 1899 Salon and the 1900 Paris Exposition, where it received a silver medal.
An Art Nouveau-style bronze sundial atop a sculpted limestone base representing the four seasons. Spring holds a rose; Summer carries poppies; Autumn wears grapes in her hair; and Winter has a pine branch.
The abstract bronze Striving was described by the artist, Charles Searles, as “symbolic of African American peoples’ long and continued journey forward toward a better and higher level of existence and achievement in the United States.”
In 1952, the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s purchase of the Prometheus cast represented the institution’s largest payment for work by a living sculptor.
One of the 20th century’s most eminent sculptors, Dame Barbara Hepworth created abstract works influenced by natural shapes.
An official project of the bicentennial celebration, Philadelphia’s Museum of African American history and culture opened to the public in 1976, a few days after the unveiling of John Rhoden’s Nesaika.
At first glance, the sculpture appears to be an inverted pyramid of human arms, legs, and torsos, but upon further study, the figures begin to emerge more clearly.