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Tours

  1. Beyond the Museum: Art on Smith’s Campus

    Smith College is home to more than a dozen publicly accessible, mostly outdoor artworks that you can visit anytime you are on campus.

    Stops

    1. Map Details & Visitor Information

      About This Map

      In addition to the 27,000 artworks housed in the Smith College Museum of Art, the Smith campus is home to more than a dozen publicly accessible, mostly outdoor artworks that you can visit anytime you are on campus.

      This interactive map, produced collaboratively by students and staff at Smith College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, provides information about the art, its makers and how to visit each piece.

      Each stop on the map includes several related artworks in SCMA’s collection.

      Visitor Information

      For the best experience of the virtual map, please connect to Smith’s guest Wi-Fi using the following information:

      Network name: Connect2Smith | Password: sophiasmith

      Due to COVID-19, visitors may choose to wear a well-fitted face mask while outside on campus. All campus buildings, including SCMA and the Lyman Conservatory, are closed.

      When campus buildings reopen, you can find public restrooms in the Smith College Museum of Art, the Campus Center, and the Lyman Conservatory. Before heading out on campus, you can fill your water bottle in the Brown Fine Arts Center atrium or the Lyman Conservatory.

      Please note that two of the works in this guide may not be accessible to everyone. Younès Rahmoun’s Chajara-Tupelo is located at the bottom of a steep incline. Frances Rich’s Saint Francis is at the top of a hill. Both works can be viewed from a distance from the path around Paradise Pond.

      We welcome your questions, comments and feedback for how to improve this guide: artmuseum@smith.edu | 413-585-2760.

      Acknowledgements

      This art tour was a collaboration between the Smith College Museum of Art and the Spatial Analysis Lab. Generous support for this project was provided by Art Bridges.

      Additional editorial work and alt text by Lexie Casais ’23.

      Copyediting: Jessica Skwire Routhier and Eileen Dunn.

    2. Man in Abstract Suit

      Viola Frey (American, 1933–2004) Man in Abstract Suit, 1988

      Glazed, polychromed ceramic in 20 pieces on metal base. Gift of Jean Freiberg Bloch, class of 1945.

      Location: Brown Fine Arts Center atrium

      This figure of a man in a brightly colored suit towers over visitors to the atrium in the Brown Fine Arts Center. The man appears resolute—one of his hands is clenched in a fist, while the other is propped firmly on his hip. To construct her monumental clay figures, artist Viola Frey first sculpts the clay in one piece. She then slices the wet clay before firing it in separate segments. This work’s central placement encourages viewers to inspect and experience the sculpture from all sides—those who view the sculpture up close are rewarded with an intimate view of Frey’s subtle blending of different ceramic glazes. Frey’s sculptures are often larger than life, suggesting contemporary references to ancient colossal statuary. Although Frey here depicts the stereotypical American businessman, the exuberant coloring counters the sculpture’s towering size and subject matter— the piece is at once whimsical and sober.

      —Yonatan Levia, M.A. ’21, University of Massachusetts Amherst

      Related works in SCMA collection:
      Viola Frey, World Civilization #5, 1987
      Randolph W. Johnston, Glimpse of Man’s Future, 1948
      Marja Vallila, Dancing Goober, 1994

    3. Nature and the Artist: the Work of Art and the Observer

      Rufino Tamayo (Mexican, 1899–1991) Nature and the Artist: The Work of Art and the Observer (La Naturaleza y el Artista: La Obra de Arte y el Espectador), 1943

      Fresco remounted on muslin on 22 hollow-core Masonite panels. Commissioned in honor of Mrs. Dwight W. Morrow (Elizabeth Cutter, class of 1896).

      Location: Brown Fine Arts Center atrium

      Rufino Tamayo was among the Mexican muralists who revived the traditional art of wall painting in the first half of the 20th century. While their murals often focused on social, nationalistic or political themes, this painting tells the story of the inspiration, creation, and experience of art. Nature, here represented by a reclining nude figure, is the source of art, along with the surrounding elements of water, fire, earth and air. These elements here take human-like form and are united under a rainbow. In the center of the composition, the artist appears, painting at his easel. The experience of art is represented by a viewer who stands before a sculpture, mirroring our own experience of viewing the mural.

      The mural was commissioned in honor of Elizabeth Cutter Morrow (class of 1896), who acted as interim president of Smith College from 1939 to 1940. It was originally painted on the walls of the Hillyer Art Library. When that complex was renovated in 2005, the mural was reinstalled in the atrium of the Brown Fine Arts Center, which connects the art department and the museum. SCMA also houses two related preparatory drawings for the figures of Aire (SC 1993.8) and Nature or Abundance (SC 1996.34), as well as seven prints by the artist.

      —Danielle Carrabino, Curator of Painting and Sculpture, SCMA

      Related works in SCMA collection:
      Judith F. Baca, Study for “Migration of the Golden People,” 2001
      Diego Rivera, Indian Warrior, 1931
      Rufino Tamayo, Aire, study for the mural “Nature and the Artist, the Work of Art and the Observer,” 1941
      Rufino Tamayo, Nature (Abundance), study for the mural “Nature and the Artist, the Work of Art and the Observer,” 1941

    4. An Imposing Number of Times, 2020–22

      Amanda Williams (American, 1974– ) An Imposing Number of Times, 2020–22

      Printed Sunbrella and fabric. This commission was made possible by the trust and support of Robin Villa; the bequest of Jane Herb Rinden in honor of Thor Rinden; the Maxine Weil Kunstadter, class of 1924, Fund; and the Carlyn Steiner '67 and George Steiner Endowed Fund in honor of Joan Smith Koch.

      Location: SCMA facade (Elm Street and Seelye lawn sides)

      In 2017, after a year of activism, Smith students made and installed Black Lives Matter banners on the houses where they live. Since then, students have remade the banners each fall. Inspired by these banners and the activism behind them, artist Amanda Williams designed banners for SCMA’s facades for her multipart commission.

      Williams’s project explores questions prompted by this new tradition. How do public declarations conflict with what occurs inside the buildings on which they appear? For whom do traditions create belonging? How is the idea—versus the reality—of Blackness valued at Smith? What happens when a tradition arrives before a place is fully ready to receive it?

      —Emma Chubb, Charlotte Feng Ford ’83 Curator of Contemporary Art, SCMA

      For more about Amanda Williams’s SCMA commission: scma.smith.edu/aw.

    5. Four Lines Oblique Gyratory Rhombus

      George Rickey (American, 1907–2002) Four Lines Oblique Gyratory Rhombus, 1972–73

      Stainless steel. Gift of the Robert and Ryda (Ryda Hecht ’37) Levi Foundation Inc.

      Location: Seelye lawn (Behind the museum)

      Known for his large kinetic sculptures, George Rickey designed this piece to respond dynamically to subtle environmental changes in its surroundings: even the slightest breeze sets the carefully balanced arms in motion. Articulated around several independently moving axes, the sculpture takes multiple forms.

      This piece is a prime example of Rickey’s later body of work, in which he incorporates gyratory motion, or full rotation around a central axis—here, the sculpture’s burnished stainless steel stem. Four tapered arms extend from the center stem like branches of a tree. Rickey embeds spontaneity and uncertainty in his work. He notes that in the year he was born, “there were only three dimensions: after Einstein, time became a fourth. If there is a fifth, surely it is chance. . . Planned indeterminacy is a component of my sculpture.”*

      —Yonatan Levia, M.A. ’21, University of Massachusetts Amherst

      * George Rickey “South Bend: Seven Decades Later,” in George Rickey in South Bend (South Bend, IN: Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, 1985) 9.

      Related works in SCMA collection:
      Yaacov Agam, Untitled, n.d.
      Alexander Calder, Mobile, 1934
      George Rickey, Forty-Three Squares Vine Variation, 1974
      George Rickey, Two Lines Leaning IV (a.h.c.), 1973
      Ernest Tino Trova, Profile Canto VI, 1973.

    6. Bittern Mother and Child

      Elliot Offner (American, 1931–2010) Bittern Mother and Child, 1922

      Bronze. Given in memory of J. Craig Huff Jr. and Ann E. Millspaugh Huff ’42 by their children Ann Huff Beaty, Deborah Huff Gevalt ’70, Carolyn Huff Burns ’72 and J. Craig Huff III.

      Location: Behind Alumnae House

      “I create sculpture that is reverential and evokes a sense of grandness and beauty and spirituality through art that speaks of nature, but is not nature.”—Elliot Offner

      In the later years of Elliott Offner’s career, his sculptures shifted from human figures to depictions of wildlife while retaining his lifelong interest in conveying emotion through his work. In fact, Offner believed that, as an artistic subject, animals often revealed complex emotions far better than humans. Here, we see two bitterns, a type of large marsh bird. The piece may express a need for connection and protection. Offner created this piece toward the beginning of our current digital age, and our desire for closeness only intensifies as physical interaction decreases in favor of virtual communication.

      —Lexie Casais ’23

      Related works in SCMA collection:
      Elliot Offner, Head from the Holocaust Series, n.d.
      Elliot Offner, Monk, n.d.
      Leonard Baskin, Wisdom is Lasting; Instinct Fleeting, 1967



    7. Great Blue Heron

      Elliot Offner (American, 1931–2010) Great Blue Heron, 1987.

      Bronze. Given by Dorothy Walton Mooney ’49, Salome Edgeworth Walton ’54, Lucy Walton Mooney ’85 and Katherine Walton Day ’81.

      Location: Smith College Lyman Pond

      Great Blue Heron is one of several sculptures on Smith’s campus that pay tribute to Elliot Offner’s time as a professor in the art department between 1960 and 2004. Although Offner taught letter arts and printmaking to Smith students, he focused on sculpture in his own work. Offner nurtured an interest in unconventional methods such as direct building, in which an artist carves straight into the material without first creating a model. This technique gives many of Offner’s works their wavy, unruly texture.

      This sculpture highlights Offner’s devotion to public art. Its twin, also titled Great Blue Heron, lives at the Darien Public Library in Darien, Connecticut, and was the first work of public art the city commissioned.

      —Lexie Casais ’23

      Related works in SCMA collection:
      Elliot Offner, Griffin, 1974
      Elliot Offner, Rhinobatus Bugasiacus, 1971
      Paul Manship, Centaur and Dryad, 1913–15

    8. Lanning Fountain

      Nellie Walker (after Jean Gautherin) (American, 1874–1973) Lanning Fountain, cast 1911

      Bronze. Gift from the Lanning family to the College in memory of their daughter, Mary Tomlinson Lanning ’12.

      Location: Between Burton Hall and Lyman Conservatory

      The sculpture at the center of this fountain is a copy by Nellie Walker of a smaller work by the French sculptor Jean Gautherin. The original sculpture, titled Marguerite, is emblematic of the type of statuary preferred in late 19th-century France, with its flowing drapery, its historical costume and the classical contrapposto posture of the subject. Its reserved depiction of solemn emotion is indicative of Gautherin’s academic training at the L’École des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts) in Paris. The casting of the sculpture was executed long after Gautherin’s death, when it was incorporated into the fountain as a memorial to Smith College student Mary Tomlinson Lanning, who died in 1910 at the age of 21. Her family had the fountain dedicated in her honor in 1912, the year she would have graduated from Smith. By choosing Marguerite, the Lannings forever associated their daughter with Gautherin’s romanticized image, and Mary herself became idealized.

      —Matthew J. Blanchard, M.A. ’21, University of Massachusetts Amherst

      Related works in SCMA collection:
      William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Young Girl with a Basket of Fruit
      Antoine Louis Barye, Theseus Slaying the Centaur Bienor, modeled 1849–50
      E. Cornu, Grecian Bust, n.d.
      Auguste Rodin, The Walking Man, modeled 1877–78; cast 1965
      Aristide Maillol, Young Bather Standing, ca. 1914


    9. The Aperiodic Penrose Torus Alpha

      Helaman Ferguson (American, 1940–) The Aperiodic Penrose Torus Alpha

      Carnelian granite (sculpture); black gabbro pyroxene with gray plagioclase crystals (base).

      Location: Outside Burton Hall

      Helaman Ferguson creates artworks that combine his interests in the arts and science. He made The Aperiodic Penrose Torus Alpha in collaboration with Marjorie Senechal, Louise Wolff Kahn Professor Emerita in Mathematics and History of Science and Technology at Smith College. Senechal studies tilings, or patterns made of shapes that fit together based on mathematical rules. The title refers to Penrose tilings, which extend infinitely without ever repeating themselves, making them “aperiodic.”

      Ferguson designed this sculpture based on images created in a computer program. The process involved rotating a circle around a line to create a three-dimensional shape called a “torus.” Ferguson’s torus, made of pink granite, stands on a base of black gabbro. As a mathematician and scientist, Ferguson believes in the importance of physical interaction with his artwork. He builds his pieces to withstand extensive human touch, giving viewers a unique hands-on experience.

      —Lexie Casais ’23

      Related works in SCMA collection:
      Alexander Calder, White Spray, 1964.
      Hendrik Goltzius, Nicholas de Deventer, Mathematician 1593
      Victor de Vasarely, Untitled, n.d.

    10. Wall Drawing #139

      Sol LeWitt (American, 1928–2007) Wall Drawing #139, 1972

      Graphite. Given anonymously by a member of the class of 1947.

      Location: Inside Burton Hall. Hallway outside the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.

      Like all of Sol LeWitt’s wall drawings, Wall Drawing #139 (grid and arcs from the midpoints of four sides) started its life as a set of instructions written by the artist. Three Smith College students worked alongside a draftsperson from the LeWitt Foundation to execute the drawing in 2013 in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.Wall Drawing #139 consists of a grid and concentric circles drawn in graphite across the span of the wall. The points where the grid and circles intersect create an undulating interference pattern that varies depending on the viewer’s position. The piece is produced mechanically from a set of instructions, but it is still a hand-drawn artwork—viewers who inspect the piece up close will notice minute imperfections and artifacts from the drafting process.

      —Yonatan Levia, M.A. ’21, University of Massachusetts Amherst

      Related works in SCMA collection:
      Hanne Darboven, Untitled, 1973
      Sol LeWitt, Alternate Broken and Not-Straight Lines, Horizontal, 1972
      Sol LeWitt, Cube Structure Base on Nine Modules (Wall/Floor Piece #2), 1976–77

    11. St. Francis

      Frances L. Rich (American, 1910–2007) St. Francis, 1969

      Bronze. Gift of Frances L. Rich, class of 1931, to the college.

      Location: Behind the President’s House

      With outstretched arms and a gaze turned upward, Saint Francis appears to sing toward the heavens in ecstasy. Saint Francis was known for his love of nature and the natural world; this statue is fittingly nestled within the foliage near the Happy Chace ’28 Garden next to the President’s House.

      Artist Frances L. Rich donated this bronze statue to Smith College in 1978. The multitalented Rich was an actor as well as an artist. During World War II (1939–45), she created technical drawings for the design of airplanes. After the war, her career as a sculptor flourished, and she completed numerous commissions across the United States and the world for similar pieces that depict religious figures. This particular sculpture was cast in Rome in 1969 using Rich's model and is based on the first sculpture she made of St. Francis in 1951. Viewers may be surprised to learn that Saint Francis’s hood doubles as a purpose-built bird bath for the birds who find themselves at rest atop the statue.

      —Yonatan Levia ’21, University of Massachusetts Amherst

      Related works in SCMA collection:
      Jacques Lipchitz, Elizabeth Bates Cowles, 1956.
      Elliot Offner, The Artist’s Son as St. Francis, n.d.
      Frances L. Rich, Laura Scales, 1936.
      Frances L. Rich, Study for St. Francis, n.d.

    12. Chajara-Tupelo

      Younès Rahmoun (Moroccan, 1975–) Chajara-Tupelo (Tree-Tupelo), 2019

      Collection of The Botanic Garden of Smith College.

      Location: Shore of Paradise Pond, near Japanese Garden

      In a performance on the morning of September 20, 2019, Younès Rahmoun planted this tupelo tree before an audience assembled on the bank of Paradise Pond. The performance took place entirely in silence. Dressed in a shirt, trousers,and boots borrowed from Smith’s landscape curator, John Berryhill, Rahmoun descended from the nearby Japanese Garden to the water’s edge, where he placed, planted and watered the tree. The performance ended when he returned to the Japanese Garden.

      Rahmoun’s performances create occasions for people to gather and be present in the here and now. He selected the tupelo for its round crown and because it is native to the eastern United States. This tree provides both a reminder of that moment of togetherness and an open-ended invitation to contemplation for all who visit it at different times of year and over its lifetime.

      —Emma Chubb, Charlotte Feng Ford ’83 Curator of Contemporary Art, SCMA

      Organized as a collaboration between the Smith College Museum of Art and the Botanic Garden of Smith College, Chajara-Tupelo was made possible by a grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Special thanks to John Berryhill and Nathan Saxe.

      Related works in SCMA collection:
      Younès Rahmoun, Habba (Seed), 2008–11.
      Qiu Deshu, Universe = Individual, 1982–84.
      Gregory Joseph Gillespie, Meditations on the Seed, 1986.
      Elizabeth Murray, Tree Head, 1983.

       

      Information about other tupelos on campus, which include a mature tupelo on the east side of the Alumnae Gymnasium, is available on the Botanic Garden website.

    13. Felicitous Filly

      Elliot Offner (American, 1931–2010) Felicitous Filly

      Location: Smith College Equestrian Center

      Directions to Felicitous Filly: Down West Street, past Smith College Campus Safety and the Indoor Track and Tennis Facility, and across the Mill River.

      With Felicitous Filly, Elliot Offner uses the technique of bronze casting, in which the artist creates a mold of the sculpture, and the common subject of the horse. Horses have long been an animal of fascination for artists across cultures, often symbolizing freedom and wildness. Located at Smith’s stables, Felicitous Filly takes the horse back to its natural environment. The piece’s location is also emblematic of Offner’s own wandering spirit. The presence and influence of his work stretches across Smith’s campus and beyond, extending to the varying locations of his sculptures as well as the connections he made with Smith students.

      —Lexie Casais ’23

      Related works in SCMA collection:
      Clarence Kennedy, Plate 15: West Frieze. The Horses of Athena
      Vol. IV: The Treasury of the Siphnians at Delphi; Studies in the History and Criticism of Sculpture      , n.d.
      Elliot Offner, Horse Maquette for Smith College Sculpture, 1995.
      Olivia Parker, Horseplay (9325), 1993.
      Théodore Géricault, Black Horse Fastened in a Stable, 1822.
      Unknown, Warrior on Horseback in Water, ca. 1870s.

    14. "The Owl"

      Leonard Baskin (American, 1922–2000). The Owl, 1962

      Bronze. Anonymous gift.

      Location: Capen Garden
      Directions to The Owl: Behind Capen House and near the Davis Ballroom.

      A mainstay of the Smith College campus, Leonard Baskin’s The Owl stood watch in front of Wright Hall for nearly two decades. Originally commissioned by an anonymous donor, the sculpture depicts an owl about to take flight. Owls were a favorite subject of the late Baskin, as they could simultaneously symbolize both wisdom and terror, a quality which the artist also saw in humans. Renovations to Neilson Library in the 1980s relegated the owl to storage, “upside down and with its feet in the air,” as described by Peggy White Leppik ’65.

      The sculpture spent several years in storage before the Smith College class of 1965 raised funds to rededicate The Owl and restore it to its original perch in front of Wright Hall. The accompanying plaque is inscribed with a quote from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “The clamorous owl that nightly hoots/And wonders/At our quaint spirits.” When new renovations of the Neilson Library began in 2017, the college moved The Owl to Capen Garden. Its installation there honors the artist, who taught in the art department from 1953 to 1974.

      —Yonatan Levia ’21, University of Massachusetts Amherst

      Related works in SCMA collection:

      Leonard Baskin, Seated Man with Owl, 1959.