NEW RESERVATION
Art and Nature Nurtured deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum secures a sustainable future as part of Trustees BY MEREDITH CUTLER n a wooded mound overlooking a rolling green lawn, a preschool aged child and her mother approach a white marble sculpture depicting an elongated female face. “What’s it made out of? Can you make that face?” the mother asks. The child contorts her expression, mimicking the exaggerated form of artist Jaume Plensa’s Humming. “Stone!” she answers proudly. Some 20 miles from Boston, the grounds of the 28.4-acre deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln are dotted with visitors. From the museum’s rooftop Rappaport Terrace overlooking deCordova’s bucolic grounds abutting Flint’s Pond, families, seniors, students, and other visitors from all corners of the globe can be seen rambling among the park’s 60-plus modern and contemporary sculptures. Zooming out on the grounds from this lofty vantage point, the giants of the park become elemental—the neon pop of powder-coated steel in dialogue with the fluidity of an enormous horsehair curtain moving in the breeze. Some works are on permanent display; others rotate in periodically. “People who visit once or twice a year often say, ‘Everything looks different! How is that possible?’” remarks Senior Curator Sarah Montross. “It’s because as we move in loans and commissions, the place looks different every time.”
©LISA FEHL
Nam June Paik, Requiem for the 20th Century, 1997, 1936 Chrysler Airstream, video, audio, monitors, speakers, 6 x 16 ½ x 6 feet, Museum Purchase with funds provided by the Island Fund of the New York Community Trust.
Since the museum officially opened to the public in 1950, visitors have flocked to deCordova—some 80,000 a year at last count—to experience art in an unparalleled setting. With a 3,500-piece permanent collection of modern and contemporary art that devotes special attention to New England artists, as well as rotating exhibitions featuring nationally and internationally recognized artists, it’s a perennially relevant and everchanging destination. This autumn, Andy Goldsworthy’s long-awaited Watershed installation joins the cast of sculptures
sprouting from rolling lawns and nestled in woodlands. And after officially integrating with The Trustees in July—becoming the newest addition to The Trustees’ portfolio of 118 properties and opening new frontiers for the organization’s mission—deCordova scribes a new chapter in a story that began over a century ago. DE CORDOVA’S DREAM
DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is set on the former estate of Julian and Elizabeth “Lizzie” de Cordova, the son of a Jamaican merchant and the daughter of a
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