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Landscape Image
Artist: Will Nettleship
Date: 1989
Material: Paved red, purple, tan brick
Location: Audubon Street between Whitney Avenue and Orange Street
Nettleship's works explore the visual and non-visual side of sculpture that appeals to the sense of touch and/or a sense of body placement. His public sculptures reflect the area in which their surrounding area, how the space is used and how the work of art can illuminate public use. Nettleship's Landscape Image reflects informal conversations between the artist and visitors of Greater New Haven Community Foundation Building as well as the visitors movement in and out of the building. The sculpture marks the building as a place where people who enter can anticipate lively things within.
Nettleship's outdoor and interior spaces can be viewed in parks, train stations, and business districts throughout the United States and Europe.
Ascending Birds
Artist: David Von Schlegell
Date: 1989
Material: Aluminum
Location: New Haven City Hall. 165 Church Street
This abstract three-piece aluminum sculpture in the lobby of New Haven City Hall is Von Schelegell's last sculpture work. Ascending Birds is "an expression of the artist's life-long love of Matisse and explores the relation of abstraction to figuration, sculpture to painting and positive space to negative space."
Stained Glass Window
Artist: David Wilson
Date: 1990
Material: Stained glass
Location: Ives Memorial Library, 133 Elm Street
Wilson of South Berlin, New York has honed his skills in both design and fabrication. His designs emphasize the importance of visual harmony in the built environment by using glass that adds to and enriches architecture.
Wilson's geometrically designed windows in the Ives Memorial Library include a large circular laylight above the main entry foyer, two rectangular laylights at the top of the stars, a leaded glass window behind the Information Center and three half-round windows in tech periodical room.
His work can be viewed in various hospitals, churches and universities throughout the country.
Path of Stars
Artist: Sheila Levrant de Bretteville
Date: 1994
Material: Granite cast stone
Location: Ninth Square, Crown Street sidewalk
Sheila Levrant de Bretteville designed Path of Stars to illuminate a section of New Haven that had been neglected for more than two decades. The Ninth Square, one of the original areas of the Colonial settlers' 1638 plan, is in the midst of rejuvenation, with many new restaurants, businesses and luxury apartments. Abandoned and decrepit historic buildings have been restored into working, living and social spaces, filled with the kind of cultural life for which New Haven is so well-known.
The recent development fulfills de Bretteville's intent to pay "homage to the working people of the area" by referencing people who worked or resided in this historic area once known for its successful factories, businesses and movie theaters. Clearly a response to Hollywood's Walk of Fame (the artist had just moved to New Haven after 20-years in Los Angeles), de Bretteville integrated local themes into the design by using colors reflective of the surrounding buildings and highlighting the lives of ordinary workers, such as Joseph McAlpine, a janitor who worked for the New Haven Gas Company,
Path of Stars runs along a north/south axis on Orange and Crown Streets and are set at fifteen foot intervals. Symbolically and literally, the artist wanted to "put people back into the neighborhood." Yale's first tenured female art professor, de Bretteville hoped that with new growth in the Ninth Square, the project would continue and more stars added.
Group A/Crown Street East contains stars dedicated to: George Lamberton, Ezekiel T. Scott, Jennie Missaro and Carl Reichbart. Group B/Crown Street West contains stars dedicated to: John Brockett, August L. Troup, Lee Chong, Ed Lawlor and Elnora Bess. Group C/Orange Street South contains stars dedicated to: Dinah Chidsey, Adolphus G. Snell, Emmaline Jones, Frederick D. Grave, James S. Johnson, Sr. and William & Jack Horowitz. Group D/Orange Street contains stars dedicated to: Titus Street, Abel C. Chamberlain, Sylvester Z. Poli, Helen Perez Hallock, Joseph A. McAlpine and Julia di Lullo.
Millennium Relief
Artist: David Colbert
Date: 2000
Material: Stainless steel
Location: Millennium Plaza, 200 Orange Street
According to the artist David Colbert, Millennium Relief was designed to complement the plaza mimicking the geometric patterns found in the facade of City Hall/Atrium, the plaza's tower and the wrought iron gates of the Hall of Records.
Stainless steel was chosen because of its reflective quality and durability. The work changes with light and the position of the viewer.
Passages: Entering the World (from Earth to Moon); Passages in Music; Passages to the New World; Passages in Literature and Architecture
Artist: Russell Rainbolt
Date: 2001
Material: Oil and enamel on lexan, gold leaf
Location: A. Conte West Hills Magnet School interior, 511 Chapel Street
New Haven artist Russell Rainbolt designed these murals with the overarching theme of "passages" as his concept. Visual continuity is achieved by using red, yellow and blue squares throughout each of the four murals.
The first mural Passages: Entering the Earth from Earth to Moon (first title Entering the World: Image and Language) features large scale paintings of the earth and moon, while the mural ends in the development of written language (cuneiform, hieroglyphics and ancient Phoenician/Greek). The second mural Passages in Music (earlier title was Sound and Script) features abstract shapes and musical notes that dance across the surface. Beethoven, Gregorian chants and the score from La Traviata are painted in a soft sand-like background.
The third mural Passages in Literature and Architecture (earlier title Foundations: Architecture and Literature) combines elements of literature and architecture while the fourth mural is centered on the rich history of New Haven as seen through iconic visual images, such as East Rock, Roger Sherman and Cinque.
Rainbolt is well known in New Haven as an artist capable of working on a very large scale: having been employed for many years as a billboard painter for Barrett Outdoor Communications, Inc.