Saturday, November 13, 2010

UIC Campus [Slabs of the Sunburnt West - by Richard Hunt]




Slabs of the Sunburnt West - by  Richard Hunt
1975 / welded bronze
30 foot X 30 foot, with protruding form 3 to 9 foot high.
Location: University of Illinois Chicago campus..
801 S Morgan..
Commissioned by the B.F.Ferguson Monument Fund..
as a memorial to Illinois poet and historian Carl Sandburg [[1878-1967]..
For more on B.F.Ferguson Monument Fund.. click here..




This is another of the almost forgotten sculptures, on which my google search did not result into any image.. Thanks to the book on "Chicago's Public Sculpture" by Ira J. Bach and Mary Lackritz Gray, I could find some information..
The sculpture is inspired by Sandburg's 1922 poem of the same name..
Stand up, sandstone slabs of red,
Tell the overland passengers who burnt you,
Tell 'em how the jacks and screws loosened you,
Tell 'em who shook you by the heels and stood you on your heads,
Who put the slow pink of sunset mist on your faces..











RELATED LINKS..

# Contemporary Sculptors of Chicago: Richard Howard Hunt..  click here..
#  B.F. Ferguson Monument Fund.. click here..

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for posting this. I "discovered" the sculpture while walking a different direction out of the campus, and I immediately recognized Mr. Hunt's work. I'm going to talk to the University about getting a plaque for it, as right now it's unidentified.