Aurora by Mark di Suvero - National Gallery Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. - Abstract Public Sculptures on Waymarking.com

The sculpture that Mark di Suvero began to make in the late 1950s consisted of massive, weathered timbers and found objects such as barrels, chains, or tires. Their dramatically cantilevered forms were seen as sculptural equivalents of the bold, gestural paintings of Franz Kline or Willem de Kooning. In the 1960s di Suvero stopped relying on scavenged industrial materials and began to create works from steel beams that he moved with cranes and bolted together to create large outdoor pieces.

Aurora is a tour de force of design and engineering. Its sophisticated structural system distributes eight tons of steel over three diagonal supports to combine massive scale with elegance of proportion. Several of the linear elements converge within a central circular hub and then explode outward, imparting tension and dynamism to the whole. The title, Aurora, comes from a poem about New York City by Federico García Lorca.

This text about di Suvero is from the Columbia Encyclopedia:

1933–, American sculptor, b. Shanghai. Di Suvero’s major works are constructions of massize pieces of steel, huge weathered timbers, tires, chains, and rope. They are remarkable for their large scale, their composition from common materials, and the effect of motion they produce. Di Suvero’s work is represented in the Art Institute of Chicago; the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Conn.; and the Whitney Museum, New York City.

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