Library Boy and Girl

Artist: Christian Petersen (Danish-American, 1885-1961)

Title: Library Boy and Girl 2008 casts from 1944 plaster maquettes

Media: Bronze

 

Petersen's Library Boy and Girl depict two students sitting modestly on either side of the entrance, so viewers must pass between them whether going into or out of the Hub.  Although at first they seem unassuming and absorbed in their reading,with a little scrutiny it soon becomes clear they are actually absorbed in something else: each other.  Although their books are open on their laps and their heads are down, they are also angled slightly so that we sense their sharp awareness of one another.  The sweetness and the tempered longing of the couple may have seemed especially poignant in 1944, when so many were separated from loved ones and the simple pleasures of a college romance seemed very remote in the midst of World War II.  The two full-sized sculptures are located on the first floor of the Parks Library flanking a stairway to the second floor.

 

Casting: Cast by Polich Art Works, Rock Tavern, New York.  Edition 1/1.

Collection: In the Christian Petersen Art Collection, Christian Petersen Art Museum.

Elizabeth and Byron Anderson Sculpture Garden, University Museums, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa.

Accession Numbers: U2008.541 and U2008.542

Lean more at www.museums.iastate.edu

 

Iowa State University

Elizabeth and Byron Anderson

Sculpture Garden

 

Submitted by

Bryan Arnold

@nanowhiskers