I Have A Dream, 1978
Abbott L. Pattison
Campus of Chicago State
University
9500 South Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. Drive
In 1977, an art committee from Chicago State University,
with support from the B. F. Ferguson Monument Fund, commissioned Chicago-based
sculptor Abbott Pattison to create a work memorializing the late civil rights
activist Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. using as a theme King’s famous “I Have A
Dream” speech delivered in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963. During the
planning of the memorial, the artist experienced a dream that combined images
from King’s marches calling for brotherhood with a scene of a stone being
thrown into a pond, creating circles that radiated from the center. In his
dream, Pattison embraced three figures, an African-American man, woman and
child, and promised them he would reach out to other strangers. In order to
illustrate these interlocking themes, Pattison designed a group of five
figures, recognizable as human but composed of crumpled, stylized forms, on a
low base. Placed roughly in a circle with their backs to each other, the
figures gesture outwardly with their hands, appearing to entreat the viewer to
consider their plea for harmony and equality.
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