It has been the most popular attraction at the Detroit Institute of Arts for decades. But now, the sculpture that has sat squarely at the entrance to one of the country’s largest fine arts museums is hitting the road. I’m referring to Rodin’s The Thinker—the iconic sculpture that draws tens of thousands of visitors to Michigan each year.
If you were making plans to visit the museum this summer expecting to take in The Thinker—be warned—you’ll now have to drive west of Detroit to Grand Rapids if you want to see the sculpture in person. For the first time since acquiring it in 1922, the Detroit Institute of Arts is loaning out the sculpture this summer while the 600,000-square-foot museum undergoes the final phase of a $158 million renovation that began six years ago.
While crews complete exterior work, museum officials say they are sending The Thinker to spend the summer at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park just east of Grand Rapids. Mark your calendars–The Thinker will leave Detroit May 22nd and go on display the next day at Meijer Gardens, where it will stand outdoors through Halloween. According to museum officials, the massive sculpture will sit in a grassy area near a waterfall. (Not a bad place to spend summer vacation.)
The move marks a historical moment for the Detroit Institute of Art, which doesn’t make a habit of loaning its prize piece to other museums. In fact, museum officials confirmed they recently denied a request from a New York museum to house the famous bronze sculpture while renovations continued at the Detroit Institute of Art.
“It’s rather a big thing to lend out,” a museum official told local news reporters. “It’s in front of our museum, and we don’t lend it out.”
For those of you unfamiliar with the massive piece of art, The Thinker was created by Auguste Rodin–considered to be the father of modern sculpture–in the 1880s as part of a larger work, Gates of Hell, a sculpture based on Dante’s “Divine Comedy.” The version that sits at the Detroit Institute of Art was cast in 1904 and donated to the museum by Horace H. Rackham, in 1922. In 1927, when the Institute moved to its current location the statue was placed inside the building’s Great Hall but later museum officials placed the sculpture in front of the building.
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