LICHTENSTEIN SCULPTURE TO JOIN SMITHSONIAN’S PERMANENT COLLECTION

Artist Roy Lichtenstein’s giant blue Modern Head sculpture, which survived the September 11 attacks, is joining the permanent collection at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, according to the Associated Press. Millions of dollars’ worth of art was damaged or destroyed near the World Trade Center, but the thirty-one-foot-tall sculpture in stainless steel was unharmed, minus a few scratches. It has been on loan outside the Washington museum since last year.

On Monday, the Smithsonian Board of Regents approved the gift from Florida Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria. Museum officials said they approached Loria about buying the work and he offered to donate it instead. “It’s probably the most significant gift of art, in terms of value of the artwork, to the Smithsonian,” said Wayne Clough, secretary of the museum complex. Museum officials declined to reveal the sculpture’s exact value but said its significance extends beyond September 11, 2001.”As an artwork itself, it’s unique,” said the museum’s deputy chief curator George Gurney. He noted it was the only blue sculpture of a series by Lichtenstein. The sculpture was created in 1989, part of a series that depict human figures resembling machines. In 1990, he painted the particular sculpture blue and left the others unpainted.

In 1996, the sculpture was set up in New York’s Battery Park, one block from the World Trade Center. After the attacks in 2001, televised footage showed the sculpture covered in dust and debris. Removed in November 2001, it later went on view at the Nassau County Museum of Art in Roslyn Harbor, New York, and in Coral Gables, Florida, before arriving in Washington, DC.