In preparation for the commemoration of the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library’s 50th year, Digital Production Services facilitated the digitization of a collection of photographs documenting the construction and opening of the Library. As I was producing metadata for one of the images, I paused…What was this? I’m pretty familiar with the public art on the Brown University campus, but this was a work I had never seen. I checked the University’s Public Art website…nothing.
Perplexing.
Two students consider a piece of public art at the entrance to the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, c.1964-69.
The number “3” is legible on the right side of the center panel of the piece – and before it, I imagine I see the ghost of a “6”. Was the piece perhaps created in ’63, for the Library’s opening in November of ’64? Was this piece of art on the steps to the Rock fifty years ago today, as a temporary installation? Who created the sculpture and where is it now?
With many questions, and little information, I create an unsatisfactory description for the cataloging record. By crowdsourcing this mystery, perhaps the description will blossom with greater accuracy.
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