Man Enters the Cosmos (Sundial)




Man Enters the Cosmos (Sundial), 1980
Henry Moore
Northerly Island, northwest of Adler Planetarium

            Henry Moore (1898-1986), a British sculptor best known for his monumental abstract sculptures that draw visual analogies between the human body and landscape forms, made his first sundials between 1965-67. One was placed in the Printing House Square for the Times of London (later sold to IBM Corporation and placed at a location near Brussels). The sculpture consists of a thin bronze rod support by two intersecting bronze semicircles and the rod marks the time by casting a shadow on the ground. The 13-foot high Chicago sundial is nearly identical to the original one, with slight modifications. Moore added a golden patina to acknowledge the 50th anniversary of modern astronomy and had to adjust to sculpture itself to accommodate the ten degree difference in latitude between London and Chicago. The B. F. Ferguson Fund donated this work to the Chicago Park District and Moore worked with architects Hammond, Beeby, and Babka on the installation process.

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