Max Turner - Two Kids on a Bench - Needham, Massachusetts USA
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N 42° 17.257 W 071° 14.140
19T E 315678 N 4684130
Two young children look at an alphabet book and sit on one half of a bench in this cast bronze sit-by-me sculpture installed at the Needham Free Public Library in Needham, Massachusetts.
Waymark Code: WM1072T
Location: Massachusetts, United States
Date Posted: 03/11/2019
Views: 6
Two young children look at an alphabet book and sit on one half of a bench in this cast bronze sit-by-me sculpture. The kids portrayed look to be around five years old. A girl in a sleeveless sundress is at the center of the bench while a boy wearing a collared button-down shirt and long pants is to her left. Her dress and his pants are patinated green. They hold a book between them and resting on the girls lap. Her left hand points to the open book. His right arm is around her back and holding her shoulder. There is a kid-sized empty space to the girl's right on the bench for somebody to join the pair.
A bronze memorial plaque is mounted to the empty seat back an reads:
A GIFT FROM THE
NEEDHAM DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
ACTION COMMITTEE
IN MEMORY OF
RUTH AND VIRGINIA BIGWOOD
Knit purple scarves had been placed around the children's necks as whimsical seasonal decoration at the time of my mid-winter visit.
I didn't find any information about this specific sculpture at the Needham Public Library. However, my research turned up an article from the Omaha World-Herald (Cozad’s bronze age: Community hopes public memorial sculptures will draw visitors to city, May 30, 2016) that shows an exact duplicate casting of the work:
The cast bronze piece by sculptor Max Turner is titled “Two Kids on a Bench.” It came from the Large Art Company in Baltimore, Maryland. It is 36 inches tall, 44 inches wide, 32 inches deep and weighs about 300 pounds.