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Alloy

Category: Outdoor Sculpture

Alloy was developed for the Sister Cities program of Indianapolis and is located in the new City County Building Plaza. The Sister Cities Program enables and promotes the connection of people from different parts of the world with local residents, while highlighting the diversity of culture in Indianapolis. The artwork mirrors this effort by encouraging interaction, and connecting people from various cultures by stimulating conversations. An alloy is a metal made by combining two or more metallic elements, especially to give it greater strength. This project was developed with that in mind, both in its duality of material and finishing techniques as well as how it represents the Sister Cities Program. The exterior faces conceptually represent the diversity of cultures existing in the city of Indianapolis. These elements reflect visitors to the plaza and surrounding environment. The inner skin references the global community and the variety of cultures that are brought together through the Sister Cities program. Unique individuals are represented by varying sized triangles throughout the piece. When viewed as a whole, a unified gradient is exposed as an interpretation of the weaving together of diverse communities. Integrated lighting transform the piece at night and provide a different experience for visitors. The project’s form and placement on the site were developed in close collaboration with the plaza design team. It was important to allow visitors to interact with the project physically, and experience it from a variety of vantage points. Its location will be visually prominent in the new plaza design and allows people to actually pass through it.

Ayres Clock

Category: Functional Artwork ; Historical

The Ayres Clock has been located at the corner of Washington and Meridian Sts. since 1936. A remnant of the era when people would use public clocks to tell time, it was named for the L.S. Ayres department store that occupied the building the clock is attached to for most of the twentieth century. The clock itself quickly became much more than just a timepiece–it was widely known as an iconic landmark. “Meet me under the Ayres Clock” was a popular saying. The clock is 8 ft. in height, is located 29 feet above street level, and weighs 10,000 pounds. Since 1947 a sculpted cherub has appeared as if by magic on the clock each Thanksgiving to mark the holiday season, and disappears just as suddenly after New Year’s Day. L.S. Ayres opened in 1905 in the structure that was purpose-built by the Indianapolis architectural firm of Vonnegut and Bohn. The May Department Store Co. (the parent company of Macy’s) bought Ayres in 1986, but the store closed in 1992. Other department stores have occupied the space since. The clock is owned by the City of Indianapolis and is taken care of by Indiana Landmarks. The clock has been repaired several times in its history, most recently in 2016 (to repair the clockworks) and 2020 (to repair the clock frame and structure). As a sign of the iconic nature of the clock, in 2016 more than 350 people and organizations donated $60,000 to the repair effort in just 24 days.

Benjamin Harrison

Category: Historical ; Outdoor Sculpture

Located along the southern boundary of University Park, this sculpture is a full-length portrait of Benjamin Harrison, 23rd president of the United States and an Indiana native. He is shown with his right hand raised in a gesture of speech. The exedra, a semicircular portico with seats located behind the sculpture, was designed by Bacon. The sculpture is a memorial to Harrison, the “faith he taught” and his “industry, fidelity, courage, sound statesmanship, and justice through the law.” The monument was erected by Indianapolis citizens and dedicated in 1908. Manufactured by Gorham Manufacturing Company (foundry). Dedicated October 27, 1908. Quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Harrison_(sculpture)

Cherub

Category: Historical ; Outdoor Sculpture ; Seasonal ; Temporary

Each year since 1947, a 3-foot-tall, 1,200-pound bronze cherub mysteriously appears atop the Ayres Clock the day before Thanksgiving and stays there until Christmas Eve. The sculpture has its roots in drawings created for the 1946 catalog of L. S. Ayres, the city’s premier department store at the time. Advertising artist Virginia Holmes used angel illustrations to fill space in the somewhat sparse, post-war catalog and they became a hit. With its 75th anniversary approaching in 1947, the store commissioned sculptor and Herron School of Art instructor David Rubins to create the bronze sculpture. Employees unceremoniously placed the cherub upon their well-known clock at the corner of Washington and Meridian Streets on the day before Thanksgiving in 1947 and created a sensation that soon became a beloved tradition. Through the years, generations of residents visited downtown during the holidays to enjoy the store’s decorated Christmas windows and take a peek at the angel, especially since it was a tradition for shoppers to “meet under the Ayres’ clock.” The Cherub has greeted holiday shoppers every year except 1992, the year L.S. Ayres closed permanently. When the department store closed, the cherub was moved to the new department store owner’s warehouse in St. Louis. After an anonymous group called Free the Cherub distributed “Free the Cherub!” bumper stickers, made hundreds of calls and sent letters to local newspapers, the cherub returned in 1993 and has appeared each year since. Where the cherub lives during the rest of the year remains a mystery, and few know how the cherub appears atop the clock each year. In 2020 the cherub received a “spa day” to clean and repatinate it to its original brownish-bronze color. Read more about the cherub here.

Depew Memorial Fountain

Category: Historical ; Outdoor Sculpture ; Water Feature/Fountain

Depew Memorial Fountain is a freestanding fountain completed in 1919 and located in University Park in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana within the Indiana World War Memorial Plaza. The fountain is composed of multiple bronze figures arranged on a five-tier Stony Creek pink granite base with three basins. The bronze sculptures depict fish, eight children dancing, and a woman on the topmost tier dancing and playing cymbals. The overall dimensions are approximately 25 x 45 x 45 feet (14 m). A memorial plaque is located on south side of the large granite basin. It reads: Depew Memorial Fountain. A gift to Indianapolis from Emma Ely Depew in memory of her husband Richard Johnson Depew M.D. whose long and honorable life was spent in untiring service to his fellow men. University Park was redesigned in 1914 by George Edward Kessler for the park and boulevard system he had developed for the city of Indianapolis. Depew Fountain was an original component of the plan and was designed by the sculptor Karl Bitter in the same year.[1] The Depew Memorial Fountain was commissioned in memory of Dr. Richard J. Depew by his wife, Emma Ely, following Dr. Depew’s death in 1887. When Mrs. Depew died in 1913, she had bequeathed $50,000 from her estate to the city of Indianapolis for the erection of a fountain in memory of her husband “in some park or public place where all classes of people may enjoy it.” An information plaque, located on the north side of the fountain, reads: This fountain is the culmination of work by three noted figures in late-19th-century and early 20th-century public art. The original design was created by Karl Bitter, who was killed in a traffic accident in 1915 before the work could be realized. Following Bitter’s overall design, Alexander Stirling Calder created the bronze figures and the fountain. Henry Bacon, a well-known landscape architect, designed the fountain’s setting. In 1926 young women from the Albertina Rasch ballet performed an interpretive dance around the fountain, mimicking the bronze sculptures thereon, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the fountain. Quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depew_Memorial_Fountain

Indiana Limestone Eagle and Globe (pair)

Category: Architectural Detailing ; Historical ; Outdoor Sculpture

Some historic architectural details that look intentional weren’t necessarily part of a building’s original plan. A good example of this is the pair of eagles atop globes outside the entrance of Old City Hall in Indianapolis. While they look quite striking in their current home, they’re actually the only surviving remnants of the Indianapolis Traction Terminal train shed, a major interurban train station in downtown Indianapolis that functioned from 1904 to 1941. The limestone pair flanked the train shed near the corner of Market and Illinois Streets. The shed had nine tracks that, at the Terminal’s peak, handled 500 trains per day and seven million passengers per year. It was the largest interurban station in the world at the time. When interurban service ended in 1941, the tracks were paved over and the terminal remained in use until 1968. At that point, the shed was dismantled; the eagles were removed and then relocated to their current home at Old City Hall. From the plaque on the statue base: “Indiana Limestone Eagle and Globe Which once graced the World-Famous Interurban Traction Terminal, built in Indianapolis in 1904 and razed in 1968 as the site of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Building Presented to the Indiana State Museum on Nov. 15, 1968 by Indiana Blue Cross and Blue Shield as a memento of the Golden Age of Interurban Transportation”

King at Rest

Category: Outdoor Sculpture

This bronze sculpture of a realistic lion resting on a rock was acquired and installed by the Indiana Convention Center and Lucas Oil Stadium organization in 2001, although it was originally cast in 1988. It is located near the northwest entrance to the Indiana Convention Center. Made of bronze, the sculpture seems more realistic because of its two-tone patina scheme. The hair of the lion is patinated black, while the body and the rock are patinated brown. (patina is different from paint; a patina is a surface treatment that becomes integral to the bronze material and is more durable, while paint simply lies on top of the bronze surface and can peel off) The artist, Lorenzo Ghiglieri, lives in Portland, Oregon and is a former combat artist. He specializes in realistic animal sculptures, and prides himself that all of his work is positive and uplifting. Read more about him at http://www.art-lorenzo.com/about.html For more information about the artwork, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_at_Rest

Korean War Memorial

Category: Historical ; Outdoor Sculpture

Designed by Indiana-born architect Patrick Brunner, this unique memorial dedicated to two different wars is made from one large cylinder that is divided proportionally to represent the number of casualties from each war. The Vietnam section of the memorial is slightly larger than the Korean section. The two sections are placed across from one another on the American Legion Mall, representing the distance in time between the two wars. Excerpts of letters written by Hoosier soldiers to family and friends at home are engraved on the convex sides of the cylinder sections, one of the most powerful components of this memorial.

Pan

Category: Outdoor Sculpture

Pan is a public artwork by sculptor Roger White located at the Indiana World War Memorial Plaza in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. This work was originally surveyed in 1993 as part of the Smithsonian’s Save Outdoor Sculpture! program. A former water fountain, this piece is part of a National Historic Landmark District. It is a bronze figure of Pan sitting on a limestone tree stump. Pan is nude and his furry proper right knee is bent upwards to his chest with his other leg hangs over the side of the stump. The satyr holds a pan flute in his hand, holding it up to his mouth, as if playing it for nearby Syrinx. Pan was originally designed by Myra Reynolds Richards. Richards’ original Syrinx and Pan sculptures were dedicated in 1923. Eventually, both pieces were stolen, with Syrinx disappearing in 1959 and Pan c. 1970. The parks department commissioned Adolph Wolter to replace the pieces, and in 1973 they were reinstalled in their current location in University Park at the Indiana World War Memorial Plaza. However, Wolter’s Pan would eventually be stolen as well, and sculptor Roger White was commissioned to replace the piece. Pan was replaced in 1980 by White. Quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_(White)

Quaestio Librae

Category: Archive ; Outdoor Sculpture

Quaestio Librae (A Question of Balance) was an abstract, geometric public sculpture by American artist Jerry Dale Sanders, formerly located on the south side of the Indianapolis City–County Building. It was a metal sculpture, by the end of its life painted a dark charcoal-gray, consisting of nine rectangular forms attached to each other in a composition that makes them seem both solid and weightless. The title derives from the placement of the sculpture in front of the building where most city government functions take place; although it is an artwork of pure form, one interpretation is that it serves as a reminder to city officials to continually think about what they are doing and work to balance the needs of governing with the needs of the people governed. The sculpture is important because it was the first contemporary-style sculpture to be permanently installed in downtown Indianapolis. Sanders was an Indiana University M.F.A. student when he proposed to create the sculpture at his own cost if the City of Indianapolis would agree to own it after he was done. The process of raising cash, finding donated materials, designing and fabricating the sculpture, obtaining permissions, and installing the sculpture was his thesis project. It was not completely installed until after he had left school. The piece was de-installed in 2017 as part of the renovation of the City-County Building Plaza into Lugar Plaza. Due to its state of disrepair and the expense of restoring it, a decision on whether to reinstall it elsewhere was tabled. In 2019, artist Nina Elder reclaimed the history of the sculpture as well as its metal as part of her commissioned neo-monument called The Score, fashioning the pieces into metal quarrying tools that she handed out to community members as a symbol of the change they were making in the community. The community members were invited to use the tools to mark the limestone element of The Score when they felt they had made a significant impact, over time destroying the limestone as the community changed. For more information about the artwork, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaestio_Librae

Schuyler Colfax

Category: Historical ; Outdoor Sculpture

This sculpture is a portrait of and memorial to Schuyler Colfax (1823-1885), an Indiana-bred politician who served as the 17th Vice President of the United States during Ulysses S. Grant’s first term. He was the first-ever vice president from Indiana. Colfax also served Indiana as a representative in Congress and rose to be Speaker of the House under President Abraham Lincoln. Before taking office he had worked as a journalist for the Indiana State Journal, the South Bend Free Press, and the St. Joseph Valley Register. Known for his genial attitude and anti-slavery stance, Colfax was highly popular in the then-new Republican Party and was nicknamed “Smiler” Colfax by his fellow representatives. After his political career was over, Colfax was well regarded for his public speaking about the Lincoln years. The sculpture, originally placed in the southwest quadrant of University Park, now resides on the eastern side of the park, facing Pennsylvania Street. It was commissioned by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows in 1887: Colfax had been active in the organization and had designed the Rebekah Degree, the Odd Fellows’ first affiliated organization for women. The relief plaque on the base of the sculpture depicts the Biblical story of Rebecca and Eliezer at the well, in reference to this accomplishment. On the northwest and southwest sides of the pedestal are additional I.O.O.F. emblems, a shield and a medieval tent with crossed staves. The artist, Lorado Zadoc Taft, was a young Chicago-based sculptor at the time of the commission. Taft eventually became renowned for his technical expertise and his traditional European style, which he applied to architectural ornament, fountains, and decorative sculpture. In addition to being a beloved teacher at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Taft was known for welcoming and encouraging female students and apprentices, a group that few other sculptors of his time were willing to take on.

Seated Lincoln

Category: Historical ; Outdoor Sculpture

Portrait of Lincoln seated in a chair, his proper right hand raised in a gesture of peace. Behind the chair is his stove pipe hat with a pair of gloves resting on top. The sculpture is mounted upon a graduated base of polished granite.

Syrinx

Category: Outdoor Sculpture

Syrinx is a public artwork by German-born American sculptor Adolph Wolter located at the Indiana World War Memorial Plaza in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. It is a bronze figure of Syrinx sitting on a limestone tree stump. Syrinx is nude, and her proper right knee is bent upwards to her chest with her other leg hanging over the side of the stump. She holds her hand to her ear, cupping it, “listening” to the music of the nearby sculpture of the satyr Pan, who plays a flute. In 1923, Myra Reynolds Richards created Syrinx and Pan for installation at University Park at the Indiana World War Memorial Plaza. Eventually, both pieces were stolen, with Syrinx disappearing in 1959 and Pan being stolen in 1970. The parks department commissioned Adolph Wolter to replace the pieces, and in 1973 they were reinstalled in their current location in University Park at the Plaza. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrinx_(Wolter)

The Ruins

Category: Outdoor Sculpture ; Water Feature/Fountain

In 1916, at the centennial celebration of Indiana statehood, John and Evaline Holliday donated their 80-acre country estate along what is now Spring Mill Road to the City of Indianapolis for a park. It was the Hollidays’ intent that the land be used for recreation and the study of nature, and the grounds as a public park and playground. Meanwhile, New York’s first skyscraper, the St. Paul Building, had been built in 1898. One of the outstanding architectural sculptors of the day, Karl Bitter, designed the façade of this building to include three massive statues made of Indiana limestone. The statues, called “The Races of Man,” represented the African-American, Asian and Caucasian races laboring together as they appeared to hold the skyscraper on their backs. In the 1950s the St. Paul Building owners decided to build a modern skyscraper on the site and before they demolished the old building, they held a competition among cities for a plan to display and preserve the Bitter sculptures. Indianapolis offered to place them in Holliday Park, which by then had become an arboretum, and was awarded the gift in 1958. The design for a Romantic-style constructed ruin had been submitted by Indianapolis artist Elmer Taflinger, a painter, and proposed to reproduce the façade of the building’s entry including original facing stone, doorways and the ledge that upheld the figures. The statues were placed east of the new community center that was under construction at the time. A reflecting pool was located between the building and the statues and two geysers of water rose from it. Taflinger worked to complete the project over the next twenty years as funding became available. As older Indianapolis buildings were demolished and pieces worthy of salvaging became available, Taflinger incorporated them into the ever-evolving Ruins design. He included a horse trough formerly located at the base of an historic monument on Fountain Square, twenty-six Greek columns from the Sisters of Good Shepherd Convent, and four of the eight statues that stood for many years above the Marion County Courthouse until it was demolished in 1962. He also included two capitals from columns originally located at Broadway Christian Church and a stone table once part of an altar at St Paul’s Church. The Ruins were eventually dedicated in October 1973, but as the 1976 Bicentennial celebration approached, Taflinger proposed an expansion of his design to convert it into a symbolic panorama of American history. His concept, Constitution Mall, symbolizes the American Republic in which men and women of all races are united in working for freedom and justice. The elaborate plan added a large reflecting pool at the east side of the original statues, extensive landscaping with long lines of English hornbeams, one for each state of the Union, and groups of evergreens representing the thirteen original colonies. A single columnar oak represented Washington, D.C. and the Washington monument. Giant slabs of rough Indiana limestone were inscribed with the words of the preamble to the Constitution. Constitution Mall was finally rededicated in September 1977. Over the years the landscaping grew and overgrew the site, and the structure fell into disrepair. In 1994 the Friends of Holliday Park spoke about dismantling the installation due to safety considerations and their desire to refocus the park on nature programming, but the community outcry to keep them outweighed their decision and small improvements were made instead. The row of boxwoods had not thrived in the Indiana winters and in 2005 were replaced by basswood trees. Several of the statues of the goddesses were damaged and unstable and had to be removed. The reflecting pools developed leaks and were no longer filled with water. After the nature center was opened in 2004, the old community center was torn down and the view of the ruins was much improved; however, the entire site remained fenced in due to areas of structural instability. Renovations completed in fall 2016 returned The Ruins to an appearance much as Taflinger intended, and added more interactive, family-friendly elements such as a shimmer pool. For more information, visit http://www.hollidaypark.org/resources/Ruins.pdf, http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-ruins, and https://paulmullins.wordpress.com/2013/12/04/renovating-ruins-ruination-consumption-and-art/

The Runners

Category: Archive ; Mural

The Runners was an outdoor mural by then-26-year-old architect James McQuiston, located on the east side of the annex to the Barnes and Thornburg Building at 7 E. Washington Street in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana. The mural occupied the east wall of this five-story commercial building. The mural was the result of a 1975 contest sponsored by the Urban Walls Task force of the Greater Indianapolis Progress Committee and the Indianapolis Department of Parks and Recreation. It was dedicated on November 20, 1975, and was one of the first contemporary-style public artworks to have been installed in the city. The mural depicts a stylized assortment of human figures in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors, all running upward in a single direction and trailing off into the distance. Some are only seen in silhouette. It was meant as an expression of humor, motion, and color. The scene was depicted as if through windows in an abstract fashion, to recall what might have been the view from the interior of the adjacent structure that had been destroyed in a fire in 1974. The mural was removed in September 2020 when the building owner made necessary repairs. Full information available here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Runners_(Urban_Wall)

Untitled (Urban Wall)

Category: Mural

Untitled (Urban Wall) is an outdoor mural by Austrian artist Roland Hobart located at 32 North Delaware Street in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana. The mural originally occupied two exterior walls of two four-story commercial buildings at this site. The mural was commissioned by the City of Indianapolis for the Indianapolis Urban Walls Project in 1973. Fabrication of the mural began in September of 1973 and finished by the end of the year. After it was completed, Indianapolis Star art critic Marion Simon Garmel described Untitled (Urban Wall) as “a complex puzzle of rectangles, pie-shaped wedges, quarter arcs and S curves in bold but earthy colors.” Urban Wall in the title refers to the Indianapolis Urban Walls Project, a region-wide call to artists by the Indianapolis Department of Parks and Recreation to develop outdoor mural designs meant to beautify downtown Indianapolis in hopes of drawing interest back downtown during the 1970s era of suburban flight. Hobart’s graphic mural is composed of bold geometric shapes of bright colors; mostly reds, yellows, and oranges with pops of blue, black, and white intermixed. Curved rectangular forms morph together to create color-blocked waves that cross the wall. Each larger curved shape is made from smaller rectangles, triangles and trapezoids. Historical information The City of Indianapolis and American Fletcher National Bank sponsored the development of Untitled (Urban Wall). The National Endowment for the Arts matched a $3,500 contribution from the American Fletcher National Bank, providing $7,000 to fund the installation of the winning mural. Deputy Mayor Michael DeFabis named Hobart’s mural the winner over four other finalists. Hobart received $700 for his winning design. His piece was the first of what was expected to be multiyear “Urban Walls Project” with many future installations. During the fabrication of Untitled (Urban Wall), which was completed by Naegele Outdoor Advertising under Hobart’s supervision, Indianapolis was home to multiple other exterior murals, but Untitled (Urban Wall) was the first to be sponsored by the city. The Urban Walls Project sourced painting services from the city’s unemployed and youth. Site ownership At the time of the mural’s installation, Steven R. Skirvin and Thomas A. Moyahan owned the two buildings on which the mural was placed. Skirvin owned the Indiana Parking Company garage, which sits at 145. E. Market Street. and Moynahan the Union Title Building, which sits at 155 E. Market Street. Both company owners agreed to fund the preparation of the area for the mural, and to pay for any future maintenance. Artist Roland Hobart was a native of Innsbruck, Austria, and studied at an Austrian art school for three years, specializing in stained glass window design and mural painting. He moved to Vienna and enrolled in the Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien. While there, he attended a six-year training program while simultaneously owning and running a printmaking business. Hobart moved to Shelbyville, Indiana, in 1966, sponsored by the Fleming family. His work in Shelbyville included designing the Shelby County flag (1972) and a sculpture for the 1971 Shelbyville High School prom. Hobart also created the logo for the Indiana General Assembly in the 1970s, a design that is still in use today. While working as a graphic artist for L.S. Ayres, in 1971 Hobart created five original prints for the celebration of the Indianapolis Sesquicentennial. Each of the five prints represent an important aspect of the city. At the same time, he also produced an original work for the International Conference on Cities which took place in Indianapolis that year. The prints for both the sesquicentennial and the conference on cities consist of the bold, geometric style seen in Urban Wall. In the summer of 1973, Hobart’s silk screen prints were displayed at the L. S. Ayres & Company Auditorium in downtown Indianapolis as part of a two-artist show. Based on this work, he was encouraged to enter the Urban Walls competition. Although Hobart’s primary career was working for Dynamesh, a company that supplied screenprinting supplies and equipment, from 1976 to 1977 he taught at the Herron School for Art and Design as an adjunct professor. He also dedicated time to working with young people in the community on mural projects, particularly disadvantaged youth. In the 1980s he moved to Bloomington, IN. As of 2015 Hobart had retired from Dynamesh and was living in a Bloomington assisted living center. More information about the artist can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Hobart Condition The mural has never been repainted since its creation in 1973. The north section suffered severe water damage in the early 1980s and was repainted a solid white, paint which is also deteriorating. Concrete patches and areas of white overpaint mar the lower areas of the remaining west section. Recently the mural has been gaining attention from Indianapolis residents and interest has been sparked in having the work restored. This effort has a presence at https://www.facebook.com/restoretheurbanwall/ More information about the mural can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untitled_(Urban_Wall)

Vietnam War Memorial

Category: Historical ; Outdoor Sculpture

World War II Memorial

Category: Historical ; Outdoor Sculpture

This memorial commemorates Indiana casualties of World War II. Indiana lost nearly 12,000 soldiers to the war, and another 17,000 returned home wounded. A unique feature of this memorial is the freestanding column that lists, in order, all the campaigns and operations of the war. Brunner, a native of Fort Wayne, Indiana, designed the memorial.

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