The deCordova Sculpture Park is internationally recognized as a major venue for the exhibition and interpretation of Modern and Contemporary outdoor sculpture. The Sculpture Park occupies the entire deCordova campus, 30 acres of beautifully landscaped lawns, forests, fields, gardens, and terraces on a rolling site along the shore of Flint’s Pond in Lincoln, Massachusetts. At any given time, approximately 60 sculptures are on display, and the Sculpture Park is open 365 days per year from dawn to dusk.
The purpose of the Sculpture Park is to reveal to visitors a reasonable cross-section of how contemporary artists work outdoors, and how art enters into dialogues with sites and environmental conditions far more complex than those found in indoor galleries. This is accomplished with a three-tired program. The first tier contains sculptures in deCordova’s Permanent Collection. These are primarily works by significant twentieth-century artists that provide an art-historical context for the more contemporary work, and include sculptures by George Rickey, Alexander Liberman, Reuben Nakian, Beverly Pepper, Dorothy Dehner, Nam June Paik, and others. The second tier is made up of artworks on temporary loan to the Sculpture Park from artists, private and corporate collections, commercial galleries, and other museums. These sculptures remain in the Sculpture Park for loan periods ranging from one to several years, and insure that the exhibition program remains contemporary and ever changing. Artists with sculptures currently on loan include Jim Dine, Roy Lichtenstein, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Chakaia Booker, Isaac Witkin, William Tucker, Sol LeWitt, and Albert Paley. The third tier includes site-specific installation and special projects designed and implemented especially for the deCordova Sculpture Park. Our most recent site-specific work is Steven Siegel’s Big, with Rift, and in 2012 deCordova will install a major installation by noted environmental artist Alan Sonfist, The Endangered Trees of New England.
The deCordova Sculpture Park has become a leader in educational and interpretive programs about contemporary outdoor sculpture. Visitors to the Sculpture Park can enjoy regularly scheduled Museum Guide tours, artist and curator talks, behind the scenes installation tours, Family Activity Kits, children’s programs, a cell phone audio tour, snow shoe tours, and even programs that combine bird watching with sculpture appreciation.
