Lions

Lions, 1893 (recast in bronze 1894)

Edward Kemeys

West entrance of the Art Institute of Chicago

111 South Michigan Avenue at Adams Street

            Part of more than thirty-five plaster models of native American wildlife produced by Edward Kemeys (1843-1907) and A. P. Proctor for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the plaster versions of these lions originally flanked the entrance to the Fine Arts Palace (now the Museum of Science and Industry). Bronze recastings of Kemeys’ two Bison from the Exposition are featured at the east entrance to the formal garden at Humboldt Park.

            After viewing the Lions at the 1893 Fair, Mrs. Henry Field donated funds to have them recast in bronze and installed at the entrance to the Art Institute of Chicago building in Grant Park. Serving as both a sensitive portrayal of wild animals and an example of guardian figures, in the tradition of Assyrian lamassu and the Egyptian Sphinx, these lions are among the best-known and most-beloved sculptures in the city. Kemeys, as reported in the Chicago Tribune, explained that the south lion was “attracted by something in the distance which he is closely watching” and that the north lion was “ready for a roar and a spring.”

(They were cleaned up in 2022.)

Cloud Gate (“The Bean”)

Cloud Gate (“The Bean”), 2004

Anish Kapoor

Millennium Park

East of North Michigan Avenue, on axis with East Washington Street

            Often it is difficult to predict how the public will respond to an innovative, large-scale work of art. It is even more difficult to imagine which work of public art, among the many located in a place like Chicago, might emerge as the “icon” of the city. Following the opening of Millennium Park, the one thing about which most Chicagoans would agree is that Cloud Gate, better known locally as “The Bean,” has replaced “The Picasso” as the unofficial symbol of Chicago. Even architect Frank Gehry, who designed the nearby Pritzker Pavilion, declared of Cloud Gate: “That’s the star of the show.”

            Artist Anish Kapoor was born in India in 1954 and has worked in London since the 1970s. Remarkably, Cloud Gate is his first outdoor permanent installation in the United States. Inspired, in part, by liquid mercury, the massive stainless steel structure is affectionately called “The Bean” due to its elliptical, kidney-bean shape. Deceptively simple in concept and form, Cloud Gate plays with the notion of a “triumphal arch” or “gateway” to a city in a manner that corresponds to the whimsical approach to a “fountain” demonstrated in Jaume Plensa’s nearby Crown Fountain. Abandoning any militaristic or nationalistic sentiment, Kapoor’s 33-foot high, 66-foot long sculpture features a twelve-foot high arch that invites viewers to pass through, gaze upward and encounter images of themselves rather than heroic figures from history. The artist has stated that he is “interested in how sculpture activates space” and believes that “big objects can do something poetically wondrous.” The reflective surfaces offer a variety of experiences, depending upon one’s perspective, the weather and the time of day. The sculpture does, in fact, allow for contemplation of clouds, as well as an incredible panorama of the architecture along Michigan Avenue. Nighttime viewing offers different rewards, in terms of color and light. The 110-ton structure manages to appear almost weightless, in part because it only touches the ground in two places.

            Acclaimed as both an aesthetic achievement and an engineering feat, the 168 stainless steel plates used to construct the surface required 2200 lineal feet of continuous welding. Not surprisingly, Cloud Gate received “The Extraordinary Welding Award” from the American Welding Society. The realization of this piece required an extraordinary collaborative effort, including the contributions of engineer Christopher Hornzee-Jones, Ethan Silva of Performance Structures, the company that fabricated the plates, Roark Frankel, supervisor of the project, and MTH industries, which assembled the piece. Additionally, the final price tag for the project was nearly four times the initial estimate of $6 million, but the entire cost of the work was covered by corporate and private donations. 

Abraham Lincoln, the Head of State (Seated Lincoln)

Abraham Lincoln, the Head of State (Seated Lincoln), 1908 (installed 1926)

Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Grant Park
Court of Presidents

North of Congress Parkway near Columbus Drive

            Depicting a deeply thoughtful and isolated leader, the work commonly described as the “Seated Lincoln” is the second portrait of the sixteenth president located in Chicago completed by sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Although the “Standing Lincoln” in Lincoln Park is better known and more critically acclaimed, the sculptor believed this one more successful, as it worked on the level of official portrait (and is sometimes confused with the Lincoln Monument in Washington, D.C. by Daniel Chester French) as well as expression of personality.

            The statue was funded by a generous $100,000 bequest from wealthy railroad manufacturer John Crerar. His will set aside money for a free public reference library and a colossal statue of Lincoln to be placed in front of the building. The site chosen for the library, at Michigan and Randolph, did not allow enough space for the statue. Upon its completion, the statue was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and then stored for years, displayed at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco and, subsequently, shipped to Chicago and stored in a Washington Park warehouse until the location in Grant Park was completed in 1926.

            The bronze figure and chair sit atop a granite pedestal in the center of a 150-foot wide exedra flanked by two 50-foot tall fluted columns with carved torches as finials. Stanford White, the architect who collaborated with Saint-Gaudens on his “Standing Lincoln,” designed this setting. Although the South Park Commissioners in charge of the project hoped to add a George Washington monument to mirror the Lincoln in the so-called “Court of Presidents,” the plan was never realized.

Other statues of Lincoln in Chicago: 

• The Young Lincoln 
• Lincoln, the Railsplitter 
• Abraham Lincoln (The Chicago Lincoln)

Related articles:

• Chicago Sun-Times (Feb. 23, 2021) Yes, Lincoln and Grant are on our list of questioned Chicago monuments — and we want to hear your views on that

Chicago Tribune (Feb. 23, 2021) Op-ed: Take down Chicago’s Lincoln statues? It’s iconoclasm gone mad 

Jay Pritzker Pavilion

Jay Pritzker Pavilion, 2004

Frank Gehry

Millennium Park

Randolph Street between Michigan Avenue and Columbus Drive

            After agreeing to accept the commission for the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry (born 1929) stated that he would “like to design the relationship between the audience and the stage,” and, in so doing, he would answer the question of how to create an outdoor space “where the people who are far away from the orchestra feel like they are included in the performance.” The solution involved an innovative arching trellis and distributed sound system, which covers the elliptical lawn on the north end of Millennium Park, combined with his signature billowing stainless steel sails forming a “headdress” above the stage. The Pavilion includes 4000 fixed seats near the stage and it can accommodate an additional 7000 people on the Great Lawn. The twenty-two steel arches of the trellis, some of which span more than 400 feet, allow the speakers to be placed above the audience without blocking sight lines. The lead structural engineer for this project, John Zils of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, had worked with Gehry on his famous Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain as well as the Vila Olimpica in Barcelona.

            Cindy Pritzker, a member of the Millennium Park Committee, was instrumental in promoting Gehry as the best choice for this project and the Pritzker family, associated with Hyatt Hotels, made the largest private financial contribution for the Pavilion. Jay A. Pritzker, who died on January 23, 1999 and for whom the Pavilion is named, and his wife Cindy established the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1978 and it was awarded to Frank Gehry in 1989.

            Part of Gehry’s Millennium Park commission included the opportunity to complete his first-ever bridge design, resulting in the snake-like BP Bridge, a 925-foot long brushed stainless steel and wood bridge that spans the four lanes of Columbus Drive, connecting Millennium Park with Daley Bicentennial Plaza. Resembling the prehistoric Great Serpent Mound in southwest Ohio, the BP Bridge offers a stunning view of the Pritzker Pavilion while providing an acoustical barrier to lower the noise of nearby traffic. 

Running Table

Running Table, 1997

Dan Peterman

Millennium Park, east of Cloud Gate

201 East Randolph Street

            Originally located in the A. Montgomery Ward Garden in Grant Park, this 100-foot long picnic table with benches is one of two works fashioned from recycled plastic extrusions for the “Chicago Front Yard Picnic.” The second work, Chicago Ground Cover, a 50 x 50 foot dance platform, has been moved to the Spirit of Music Garden at 601 South Michigan Avenue and expanded to 4600 square feet in order to accommodate more dancers. Running Table now sits east of Anish Kapoor’s CloudGate ("The Bean") in Millennium Park.

            Running Table inspires introspection and interaction on a number of levels. Functionally, the table invites strangers from various walks of life to congregate as they eat. Sociologically, such interactions may reveal a sense of community, or lack thereof, in a public space in the city. As an object crafted from recycled extruded plastic (the equivalent of two million milk jugs) in a space often defined by city-sponsored fairs and tourism, it comments on the waste produced during such events and in American society in general. Because the table is modular, constructed from interlocking pieces, it may, theoretically, be extended endlessly. Thus, it could be understood to speak to the ongoing need for creative solutions to the issues of consumer waste and over-consumption or, perhaps, the ultimate futility of such endeavors.

            Peterman received his M.F.A. from the University of Chicago in 1986 and is known for works of art that engage with their environment and with the public in ways that explore networks of recycled and discarded materials. In 2002, he co-founded, with Connie Spreen, the “Experimental Station” on the south side of Chicago, a not-for-profit “incubator of innovative cultural, educational, and environmental projects and small-scale enterprises.” In addition to housing his studio and providing venues for various artistic and cultural events, one occupant is the Blackstone Bicycle Works, a youth education program that pairs skilled bicycle mechanics with young people from the Woodlawn neighborhood and the South Side in order to teach mechanical and other job skills. The shop promotes ecological practices as it refurbishes donated and abandoned bicycles and allows the interns to work toward purchase of such bikes, as well as offering them for sale to the general public.