Atmosphere and Environment XII

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Atmosphere and Environment XII by Louise Nevelson.
Photo by Joe Mikuliak,
courtesy of the Association for Public Art.

Atmosphere and Environment XII

Philadelphia Museum of Art, West Entrance

Art Museum Drive

Philadelphia, PA

Website:  Association for Public Art: Atmosphere and Environment XII

… and click here for information on the wide variety of Philadelphia’s public art maintained by the Association for Public Art.

The Treasure:  Atmosphere and Environment XII is an 18,000-pound masterpiece of modern sculpture.

Background:  There are two great sculptures in highly visible positions outside the west entrance (that’s the side overlooking the Schuylkill River—not the more iconic side with the Rocky steps) of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. As you approach the west museum entrance, Social Consciousness, a 1954 bronze sculpture by Jacob Epstein, is to your left. And to the right is our Save America’s Treasures piece:  Atmosphere and Environment XII by the acclaimed American sculptor, Louise Nevelson (1899-1988).

Deinstallation of Atmosphere and
Environment XII in 2005.
Photo by Joe Mikuliak, courtesy of
the Association for Public Art.

Although labeled XII by Nevelson, this particular sculpture is really the third in a series of four that runs from X through XIII. Each subtly different, the four sculptures were created late in Nevelson’s career, at a time when she was experimenting with monumental size and new materials like Cor-Ten, a recently developed weathering steel. The first, Atmosphere and Environment X, was conceived in 1969 as a commission for Princeton University, followed by XI for Yale University, then XIIwhich was constructed in 1970 and purchased by Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park Art Association (now the Association for Public Art) in 1972, and finally XIII for Scottsdale, Arizona.

“Environments” is a term that Nevelson frequently used to refer to her famous collages. In the 1950s and 1960s, she constructed a wide variety of collages from wood and found objects, creating intricate arrangements and then painting them a solid color—first entirely black, then all white, with a brief “baroque” period of gold.

While the word “Environment” in the Atmosphere and Environment series refered back to her earlier works, “Atmosphere” added something new to Nevelson’s art. “The landscape is the atmosphere that fills the spaces of the steel environment,” she explained. “The two together are the sculpture.” Unlike her earlier collages, this new series of massive outdoor sculptures was created to interact with the changing world around it—in her words, the atmosphere. The large scale of the works may have been partly inspired by her interest in Mayan ruins and theater sets.

Like many modern artists, Nevelson embraced transience with her Atmosphere and Environmentseries. The atmosphere—the scenery viewed both behind and through the sculpture—would inevitably change over time. The appearance of the steel would change as well, as it developed a distinctive rust patina. But Nevelson would probably not have predicted that the very structure of the sculpture would quickly become threatened by “corrosion jacking,” with the buildup of corrosion materials actually moving the sculpture’s box-shaped elements apart.

"Before treatment" image showing
corrosion jacking on the box elements.
Photo courtesy of the
Association for Public Art.

Funding from Save America’s Treasures, the Getty Foundation, and The Locks Foundation was raised to address the problem of the corrosion jacking. Working with the Association for Public Art, the Conservation Department of the Philadelphia Museum of Art developed innovative treatment approaches to restore the disfigured box elements. It was a five-year process, including the challenging deinstallation of the sculpture in 2005, followed by months of detailed restoration work, and climaxing with a rededication service on the Art Museum steps in May 2007.

Objects conservator Sara Creange working on the project.
Photo courtesy of the Association for Public Art.

Other Recommended Sites:  The west entrance side of the Philadelphia Museum of Art is a bucolic setting, with a terraced landscape that slopes down to the Schuylkill River and the historic Fairmount Water Works. The Philadelphia Museum of Art recently installed the Anne d’Harnoncourt Sculpture Garden on the west grounds, featuring works by Isamu Noguchi, Sol LeWitt, Claes Oldenburg, Ellsworth Kelly, and others. Iroquois, a monumental sculpture by Mark di Suvero is located nearby, just around the corner on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

Philadelphiacan also boast another major work by Louise Nevelson. On the other side of Philadelphia’s Center City, Nevelson’s Bicentennial Dawn is located in the interior of the James A. Byrne Federal Courthouse on 601 Market Street.

Conservators who worked on Atmosphere and
Environment XII at the rededication service in 2007.
Photo by Joe Mikuliak,
courtesy of the Association for Public Art.

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© 2013 Lee Price