The
Mission of The Sculpture Center
The
Sculpture Center is a not-for-profit arts institution dedicated to the advancement
of the careers of emerging Ohio sculptors and the preservation of Ohio outdoor sculpture
as a means to provide support for artists and to effect the enrichment,
education, enjoyment, and visual enhancement of the Cleveland community and greater
region.
A Brief History of The Sculpture Center
1989
The abstract sculptor David E. Davis (1920-2002) and
his wife Bernice Davis founded The Sculpture Center in a storefront
gallery on Euclid
Avenue,
part of a compound with Davis’s working and presentation studios,
offices, and a small sculpture garden. The brick buildings, beautifully
converted by Davis to contemporary uses, were constructed in 1916 by
the Gandola family, stonemasons who made the monuments for the adjacent
Lake
View Cemetery.
1990s
The Sculpture Center exhibited the work of over 100 emerging Ohio
sculptors in the Window to Sculpture Emerging Artist Series,
presented technical
workshops for artists and the public, and linked art students with
sculptors in an apprenticeship program. The Center began a survey
to record the
location, creation and fabrication history, and condition of all
outdoor, public
sculpture in northeastern Ohio and was chosen as one of five statewide
organizations to receive the federal funds for Save Outdoor Sculpture
(SOS!), the largest nationwide volunteer effort ever undertaken,
to record this
information for outdoor sculpture across America. At the completion
of this survey, the Center placed on its website the information
for all
Ohio outdoor sculpture that had been recorded (Ohio
Outdoor Sculpture Information).
The Sculpture Center’s Conservation Committee, originally a
private citizens group, raised the funds and began, with professional
conservators
and a cadre of volunteers, to conserve and maintain 35 outdoor sculptures
in Cuyahoga County.
1999
The Sculpture Center moved to a new building on East 123rd Street, at
the back of the compound, which it shares with the Artists
Archives of the
Western Reserve, also founded by Davis.
2000 – Present
The Sculpture Center enhanced its exhibition programs, to give a wider
artistic context and provide more varied exhibition opportunities for emerging
Ohio sculptors, by adding an annual juried regional exhibition and a season
of exhibitions of rapidly rising and established artists. It presents artists
talks and panels with every exhibition. The Center completed the conservation
and maintenance of the 35 sculptures of Cuyahoga County in 2003.
In 2007, through
the generosity of studioTECHNE Architects, whose offices moved to
the Euclid Avenue storefront space,
The Sculpture
Center further
expanded its programming to include selected exhibitions in
its original space, now the Euclid Avenue Gallery, in tandem with
its main gallery
exhibitions. The David Davis working studio is now used by
a Cleveland sculptor, and
the David Davis presentation studio is open for tours by appointment.
The Sculpture Center compound of two sculpture galleries, the
gallery and collection
of the Artists Archives of the Western Reserve, artist studios,
an architectural firm, and a sculpture garden is the cultural
nexus of University Circle’s
East End.
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