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The Great God Pan Sculpture
The Great God Pan Sculpture
1

Pan Fountain, Columbia Grounds, 120th St. & Amsterdam Ave.

Presented by Edward S. Clark.

1910

The Great God Pan Sculpture

Pan Fountain, Columbia Grounds, 120th St. & Amsterdam Ave.

Presented by Edward S. Clark.

IMAGE DATE1910
FromMuseum of the City of New York logoMuseum of the City of New York

The Great God Pan, ca. 1907.

Originally located (as seen here) at the center of a fountain on the north side of the Columbia campus, the bronze sculpture was actually intended for a very different location. Commission by the Clark family in the 1890s for a location at their Dakota apartment building, the resulting statue was deemed too risque for the apartment house. For a time it was considered for a spot in Central Park, but finally Edward Severin Clark donated the piece to Columbia for its uptown campus. It was installed in 1907 as a working fountain in a grotto on the northeast corner of campus. It was moved, at an unknown point in the 20th century to its current location outside of Lewisohn Hall.

Pan, (deemed to risque for the Dakota) by the American artist George Grey Barnard, is depicted in his usual form as half-man (nude), half-goat, playing his traditional pipes. Cast from bronze by the Henry-Bonnard Bronze Co., a local foundry, it was one of Branard's first commissions. His later medieval architectural fragments and sculptures would go to become the foundation for the The Cloisters Museum & Gardens at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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