Ninth Street Post Office Façade

Although Philadelphia was the first city in the United States with a policy to fund public art, its government was by no means the first to do so, as this example from the Robert N.C. Nix Federal Courthouse in Philadelphia demonstrates. For this former post office building, the two heroic reliefs symbolize the postal service in the South (to the left) and the North (to the right). They were created by sculptor Edmond Romulus Amateis (1897-1981) and date from 1941, near the end of a flourishing period for art under the federal government, which included a percent-for-art provision within a Treasury Department program. The resulting art that survives at facilities such as the courthouse and former post office here, on Ninth Street at Market Street, stemmed from efforts to assist unemployed artists during the Great Depression. (Photograph by Josh Silver)

Philadelphia City Councilman Henry Sawyer

Chestnut Hill Conservancy

Henry Sawyer (1918-99) was a Philadelphia city councilman, civil rights activist, and prominent lawyer. He was one of several pioneers of “percent for art” in Philadelphia who added their support to the program’s best-known initiator, Michael von Moschzisker. Over several years in the 1950s, Sawyer discussed Philadelphia starting such a funding mechanism with a core group of Philadelphians including fellow City Councilman Donald Rubel (1900-80); John Canaday (1907-85), later a legendary New York Times art critic); and Joseph Greenberg (1915-91), a native Philadelphian and sculptor. Greenberg lived in Italy for four years, from 1949 to 1953, and upon returning to the U.S. enthusiastically shared his appreciation for the plentiful public art in that country’s cities and his desire for more support for art in American cities.

After Sawyer pushed for a vote on a “percent” program for the city, the City Council made it a law on December 24,1959. Sawyer, who was about to retire from City Council, quipped that the new legislation was a “going-away present.”

John Bogle’s Nicetown Park Sculpture

This tower, designed by sculptor John Bogle (b. 1940), is composed of a sinuous, circular set of eight aluminum panels. Located in Nicetown Park at Germantown Avenue and St. Paul Street in North Philadelphia, it was once the centerpiece of a fountain whose hardware has since been dismantled. When the tower was installed in 1974 it was hailed as “durable and not easily defaced.” (Photograph by Josh Silver)

Three Bears Park, 319 Delancey Street

Delancey Park, more often known as “Three Bears Park,” has made a memorable impact on three generations of children. This is one of several pieces in a large-scale redevelopment of Society Hill, overseen largely by the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority in the Washington Square East Urban Renewal Area. The area includes several “percent” artworks. The Friends of Three Bears Park, founded in 1989, remains dedicated to maintaining the park for more generations of children to enjoy. (Photograph by Josh Silver)

“Government of the People,” North Broad Street, Philadelphia

“Government of the People” is arguably the best example of controversy and the clash of tastes in the history of Philadelphia’s “percent” regulations, largely because of the outspoken and colorful nature of a larger-than-life mayor, Frank Rizzo. Rizzo, a polarizing figure, said the sculpture looked like a pile of plaster. His taste for representative art clashed with what he saw as elitist art choices under percent programs. In the 1960s, sculptor Jacques Lipchitz was commissioned to provide an artwork for the Municipal Services Building across from City Hall, but a few years later Rizzo, as a new mayor, refused to release city funds for its completion and placement. This led to protest from the local arts community, and the sculpture—Lipchitz’s last— was incomplete when the artist died in 1973. Later that year, the Fairmount Park Art Association (later renamed the Association for Public Art) decided to take charge of the project so that it could be dedicated in time for the nation’s Bicentennial in 1976. (Photograph by Josh Silver)

The “Clothespin” at Centre Square, 1500 Market Street, Philadelphia

The “Clothespin,” an icon of the Pop Art movement, is the most prominent piece in what may be the greatest achievement of the “percent” program—the acquisition for one development of works by three twentieth-century masters: Claes Oldenburg (1929-2022), Jean Dubuffet (1901-85), and Alexander Calder (1898-1976). Selected by art collector and developer Jack Wolgin, the cost of the works totaled about $800,000, or 1 percent of the $80 million Centre Square office complex that rises across Fifteenth Street from Philadelphia City Hall. Besides Oldenburg’s “Clothespin,” the art for this project included Dubuffet’s “Milord La Chamarre” (or, loosely, “My Lord of the Fancy Vest”) and eight banners designed by Calder. After years of display, the banners were put in storage, thought to be lost, then recovered and given to the Free Library of Philadelphia, where they were to be displayed after restoration. (Photograph by Josh Silver)

“El Gran Teatro de la Luna” in Fairhill Square Park

“El Gran Teatro de la Luna,” a 1982 work whose title translates to “The Big Theater of the Moon,” was not initially in the “percent” portfolio, but later became the responsibility of the city’s program under its Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy. It represents a small achievement against the realities that plague much of public art. It was donated to the city by the venerable non-profit Fairmount Park Art Association, since renamed the Association for Public Art.

The artist behind “El Gran Teatro de la Luna,” Rafael Ferrer (b. 1933), was born in Puerto Rico. Shortly after he drafted the sculpture’s fantastical array of figures including a juggler, acrobats and a big cat, among other players, he learned that his work’s intended spot had been taken by a utilities structure including restrooms. Ferrer’s initial surprise was supplanted by the happiness that this plain structure could give his work great height, which would impressively display its 156-feet span and figures as high as 13 feet above its base. The next 16 years were not so grand, as this accidental pedestal became a magnet for drug dealing and was destroyed by the city. “El Gran Teatro de la Luna” was put into “temporary” storage which lasted for nearly fourteen years due to a lack of money to reinsert it into the park. Finally, the city’s “percent” program provided $35,000 as part of the total needed to replace the work within the park on top of the trellis seen here in 2013. (Photograph by Josh Silver)

The Northern Segment of the “Open Air Aquarium”

The sculptural ensemble known as “Open Air Aquarium,” whose northern segment is seen here, provides an example of times when developers have resisted the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority’s “percent” policy. In this case, Peter DePaul, of suburban Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, initially approved spending $500,000¬—or 1 percent of a $50 million budget for his proposed Dockside condominiums—for art, through a representative. Later, in 2001, he balked at the cost for “percent,” and the Redevelopment Authority considered a compromise with him, such as a park in front of Dockside instead of art. Arts groups, including the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, protested through letters, a community meeting, and other means, and DePaul returned to a percent plan. The result, in homage to the adjacent river, was thirty sculptures of fish, each different, created by Polish-born sculptor Magdalena Abakanowicz (1930-2017). (Photograph by Josh Silver)

“MVP” sculpture in Smith Park

The sculpture “MVP” (“most valuable player”), was the first freestanding sculpture in Philadelphia to portray an individual Black girl. Representatives of the city’s “percent” program heralded it as pointing the way forward for more diversity of cultural representation in city-sponsored public art as well as making it a focal point of events for the sixtieth anniversary of “one percent for art” programs. The sculpture stands at Smith Playground, a South Philadelphia playground serving a largely African American population, and its portrayal of a young athlete at a pivotal moment of decision-making on the basketball court evokes the potential of young people. While the model for the sculpture was a girl named Scottlynn Johnson who lived near the studio of its Indianapolis artist, Brian McCutcheon (b. 1965), the work was inspired by Ora Washington (1898-1971), a pioneering Black basketball and tennis player in Philadelphia. (Photograph by Josh Silver)