Broken Obelisk
Newman, Barnett
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Date
2003Description
Overall view; Broken Obelisk is the largest and best known of six sculptures by Barnett Newman (who was primarily a painter). It is made from three tons of Cor-Ten steel which acquire a rust-colored patina. Broken Obelisk was designed in 1963-1964 and two were cast in 1967. One of these was erected next to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. In Washington the sculpture was interpreted as a "broken" Washington Monument in times of civil rights turmoil. This copy was acquired from the Corcoran in 1971 by the Rothko Chapel in Houston and is permanently installed there, and now dedicated to Martin Luther King, Jr. As both form and symbol, the pyramid (a place of ascent of the human spirit) and the obelisk (monument to life and renewal, broken relic of antiquity) fascinated Newman. There is another cast (1969) at MOMA in NYC, and one at University of Washington, Seattle. In 2003, with the permission of the Barnett Newman Foundation, a fourth Broken Obelisk was cast and temporarily installed in front of the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. Source: Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page (accessed 6/18/2014)
Type of Work
sculpture (visual work)Subject
abstraction, contemporary (1960 to present), Egypt--Civilization, King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968, Twentieth century
Rights
Rights Statement
Licensed for educational and research use by the MIT community only