The Great Double

The Great Double

Artist	Alicia Penalba
Year	1972
Type	Public art, sculpture
Dimensions	840 cm × 440 cm × 405 cm (330 in × 170 in × 159 in)
Location	Milwaukee, Wisconsin

The Great Double is a bronze sculpture by the Argentine artist Alicia Penalba (1913-1982). One statue named Le Grand Double (1962-1964) is on display in the sculpture garden of the Dutch Kröller-Müller Museum.^[1] Another (1972) is on display outside the MGIC building in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.^[2]

Description

The Great Double measures 28 feet high and weighs 12 tons.^[3] The sculpture was produced by the Tesconi & C. Fonderia D'Arte S.N.C located in Pietrasanta, Italy.

The Great Double resembles an organic form. It is made up of many different round and rectangular forms, and has a surface that somewhat resembles bark. The one on display in Milwaukee stands between the MGIC building and a small park, as if to be a stepping stone; it merges the organic and the man-made. The Great Double is truly a monumental sculpture. Standing vertically at 840 cm (over two stories) it challenges the surrounding trees within its proximity for dominance, as well as the MGIC building, to which it is adjacent. One must stand several feet away in order to take the whole object in at once.

Historic information

"The Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation was founded in the 1950s by Max Karl... Less than twenty-five years later, the company had become a financial leader and decided to build its corporate headquarters in Milwaukee."^[3] Skidmore, Owings and Merril hired Milwaukee firm Fitzhugh Scott Architects, Inc. to design the headquarters, which were located east of the Marcus Center. The design consisted of an inverted pyramid, with each floor fifteen feet below the ground.

When The Great Double was selected to be sited on the plaza in front of the building, the plaza, the stairs and the landscape were redesigned to give visitors a feeling of monumentality. "Max Karl, president of the MGCI Investment Corporation, commissioned the sculpture with the desire to place a major artist's work in the community and to reassert the commitment of the private sector to the improvement of downtown Milwaukee. At the dedication of the sculpture, Mayor Henry Maier congratulated MGIC for its "distinctive contribution to the cityscape" in an area targeted for urban renewal in the city."^[3]

References

↑ "Grand double/Large double". Kröller-Müller Museum. Retrieved 1 December 2010.
↑ Sullivan, Mary Ann. "Le Grand Double at Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Company Plaza (MGIC Plaza)". Retrieved 1 December 2010.
1 2 3 Buck, Diane M. and Virginia A. Palmer (1995). Outdoor Sculpture in Milwaukee: A Cultural and Historical Guidebook, p. 29. The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison

External links

View more sculptures by Penalba

Milwaukee public art

Downtown	The Victorious Charge Family The Calling Wisconsin Workers Memorial Wind Leaves Birds of Knowledge of Good and Evil The Great Double Woodland Indian and Whistling Swans Solomon Juneau Leif, the Discoverer Letter Carriers' Monument Argo Bronze Fonz Walkways Through the Wall Abraham Lincoln George Washington Referee Immigrant Mother King Gambrinus RiverSculpture! Gertie the Duck General Douglas MacArthur The Spirit of Polonia World War I Memorial Flagpole Pedestrian Drama Midsummer Carnival Shaft Acqua Grylli Laureate Diana Trigon Pere Jacques Marquette Spanish-American War Soldier Ruins X Ex Stasis City Yard Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Peter John A Beam of Sun to Shake the Sky Rainbow Machine Topiary Lucere Dancing Through Life Gertie Gets Her Ducks in a Row Mother Teresa Monument Jacques Marquette You Rise Above the World The Last Alarm

North Side	Celebrating the Arts Christian Wahl Elk On Watch Pattern Lapham Memorial Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. here, mothers are... Music Fishing Spirit of the Firefighter Dauntless Guardian Buildings 1992 Gear 23 All in the Air at Once First Flight Sea of the Ear Kindred Ties

East Side	Cleopatra's Wedge Float Polyphony Boy with Goose Eight Stone Lions Three Bronze Discs Holocaust Memorial Happy-Go-Luckies of Nature and Technology Blue Dress Park Sentinels Hermes Milwaukee Eclipse 'X' Intertwining Compass Erastus B. Wolcott Sharing the Load Robert Burns Near Here Compass Walk Like a River Spillover II Tip Jantar-Mantar Cass Street Park Brady Street Beasts Connect Fairies Candles

South Side	Menomonee Count Casimir Pulaski Spirit of Commerce Bay View Series A Place to Sit Stratiformis The Hill Climber Deflected Jets Angel in a Cage R.D. Whitehead Monument Memorial for Belle Austin Jacobs T.A. Chapman Memorial Nature Belle Oops, Missed Space Game Engine Company No. 10 William A. Starke Memorial Steel Reborn Red Flower Rising General Thaddeus Kosciuszko Patrick Cudahy Memorial SOARING Two Opposites Reaching Up Toward the Peak of Progress Edge Elements Ribbons VI Bridge Stone Bracelet Untitled Quartet Tending the Fire Bird and Fish The Sower The Reaper Giving Gifts

West Side	Henry Bergh Goethe–Schiller Monument Chrysalis The Ideal Scout Uptown Triangles Tree of Life Magic Grove Steuben Monument Kneeling Camels Teamwork Aaron Monument Yount Monument Selig Monument Uecker Monument Fire and Water Vliet Street Commons Miller Valley Veterans Monument Children of the West End

Lynden Sculpture Garden	Sinai Wandering Rocks Sea Form (Atlantic) Sky Fence Floating Sculpture No. 3 Mo, Ni, Que Trio Two-Piece Reclining Figure No. 9 Way Four Compound Junior Salem No. 7 Bremen Town Musicians Ancestor Queen of Sheba Rhythm in Space Peristyle, Three Lines Orizzontale Embrace Ursa Major Three Graces Large Torso, Arch Double Up Upstart The Lovers Poland Axeltree Orbits Ritual II Hara Olympus The Lovers Tensione No. 2 The Source Rainbow Unfolding Vegetative Sculpture I Round About Lodgepole Twist for Max Bench-Stone Windfall Knife Tree Conversations with Magic Stones, Figure Three Conversations with Magic Stones (Magic Stone Three) Kumo Untitled Arch Epicenter Epicenter II III Columns Flight Pin Oak I

Mobile projects	Overpass Light Brigade

Overview	List of public art in Milwaukee

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/10/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.