Man Enters the Cosmos - Chicago, IL - Smithsonian Art Inventory Sculptures on Waymarking.com

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Dimensions: Approx. H. 13 ft.

Commissioned by the trustees of the B.F. Ferguson Monument Fund. Text on nearby plaque reads: Man Enters the Cosmos/This sundial sculpture created by/Henry Moore and commissioned by/the Trustees of the B. F. Ferguson/Monument Fund is erected in recognition of the revolutionary program of space exploration/which was launched in the second/half of the twentieth century,/making it possible for man to/land on the moon and to send/probes to Mercury, Venus, Mars,/Jupiter and Saturn/-May 1980.

From the Chicago Park District website pdf: (visit link)

"Adjacent to the Adler Planetarium, Man Enters the Cosmos honors the golden years of astronomy, from 1930 to 1980. Located near two other astronomy-related artworks, the Nicolaus Copernicus Monument and Spiral Galaxy, the abstract sculpture is a thirteen-foot-tall equatorial sundial. Henry Moore (1898–1986), one of the world’s most celebrated and prolific artists of the twentieth century, produced the sculpture. Between 1965 and 1967, Moore created his first sundial for the London Times Newspaper and a smaller one for his home at Much Hadham, Hertfordship, England. (The original London Times sundial was later sold to the IBM Corporation and remains in its second location near Brussels.) Although the Chicago sundial is nearly identical to the original one, it has some slight differences. Moore gave the bronze sculpture a subtly golden patina to relate to the fifty year anniversary of modern astronomy. He also modified the sculpture to accommodate the ten degree difference in latitude between London and Chicago. The B.F. Ferguson Fund donated Man Enters the Cosmos to the Chicago Park District. The Ferguson Fund had previously commissioned another outdoor sculpture by Moore, Nuclear Energy, which was installed in 1967, at the University of Chicago on the precise site of the world’s first controlled self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. Plaques below the sculpture explain how to tell time using the sundial."

I visited at just before 3pm, but you can see the shadow is just before 2pm - you have to add an hour since we are now in daylight saving time (Mar 21, 2014.)

TITLE: Man Enters the Cosmos ARTIST(S): Moore, Henry, 1898-1986, sculptor. Hammond, Beeby and Babka, architectural firm. DATE: 1980 MEDIUM: Bronze with golden patina. CONTROL NUMBER: IAS 87580001 Direct Link to the Individual Listing in the Smithsonian Art Inventory: [Web Link] PHYSICAL LOCATION: Burnham Park, Adler Planetarium entry plaza, Solidarity Drive, Chicago, Illinois DIFFERENCES NOTED BETWEEN THE INVENTORY LISTING AND YOUR OBSERVATIONS AND RESEARCH: there's a typo in the Owner section - "planitarium" s/b "planetarium"

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