Public Art

Over the last several years, the Arts Council’s Public Art Advisory Committee has been helping revive Hartford’s glorious 19th-century tradition of monument building. More than 60 major works of art enrich Hartford’s public places, enhancing our streets, parks and plazas. These treasures include commemorative medallions and plaques, memorial stones and bas-reliefs, cemetery monuments and grave markers and sculptural elements incorporated into buildings. With funding from the City of Hartford and the United Arts Campaign, the Arts Council has spearheaded several exciting projects.

Hartford Public Library, Albany Avenue

The Greater Hartford Arts Council, in partnership with Hartford Public Library and with support from the City of Hartford, commissioned a new public sculpture for the library’s Albany Avenue branch. The new branch building is part of a “campus” that connects the library with the neighborhood’s prominent cultural institutions and popular park system.

Song of Books, by Howard Kalish, displays open book shapes along a structure reminiscent of a five-line staff used for music notation. Each book is a note in a musical composition on the ladder-like staff. The books give the impression of flying or soaring, as if the books are about to take off into the sky – a metaphor for the endless possibilities with the opening of a book.

The sculpture is sited on Albany Avenue to the right of the library entrance on open land that adjoins other neighborhood cultural institutions.

Please direct questions to:

Elizabeth Hucker
Director of Community Investment, Greater Hartford Arts Council
EHucker@LetsGoArts.org
860-525-8629

PUBLIC ART PROJECT: POPE PARK WEST

The Greater Hartford Arts Council is delighted to support the development of Pope Park West, Hartford's first ecologically designed park project. The new park will provide an important recreational space and walking path for area residents and features a public garden and open-air amphitheatre.

A key feature of the project is a new, site-specific public art installation entitled designed by Lifecare Design, Inc. architects Hermann Cortes-Barrios and Natalie Sweeney. The piece, entitled "Windy Metal Garden," features six leaf-form metal structures designed, fabricated and installed by local artists.

Pope Park West Before

Pope Park West After