On March 29, we learned that Columbia University plans to permanently lodge a hideous sculpture in front of Butler Library. Administrators have not announced an unveiling date, but we expect installation to be completed within days.

The bronze monument, titled Reclining Figure, was sculpted by the noted English artist Henry Moore. It “is meant to suggest the form of a woman with her legs outstretched before her, propping herself up with her forearm.”

As both inheritors and wards of our beautiful campus, we object to this desecration of our home.  Whatever its artistic merits, the sculpture in front of Butler Library will disrupt an otherwise crisp, geometric, and symmetrical landscape. Further, Moore’s modernist figure clashes with the neoclassical aesthetic instantly recognizable to generations of Columbians.  It will also rob the the community of some of the few precious square yards of grass open to the public.

The installation of the statue seems inevitable. The base was built earlier this week. However, it is our profound belief that had this project not been carried out surreptitiously, there would have been substantive outcry from faculty, staff, alumni, students, neighbors, and anyone else with ties to our campus.


Sign this petition if you agree.