Wesley W. Posvar Hall - Art

Art

Virgil Cantini's colorful porcelain enamel on steel mural Enlightenment and Joy (1977) is on display on the ground floor. The piece is an example of Cantini's use of circles, representing the earth, moon, and sun, an artistic trend inspired by the Apollo moon landings. The work was created to honor former University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Edward Litchfield who died in a plane crash in 1956.

Cantini's 1965 steel rod and multicolored glass sculpture New Horizons, Skyscape is also on display near room 1500. The sculpture was donated to the university by the Joseph Horne Company from its department store in the South Hills Village mall where it had previously been on display.

Tony Smith's 1971 20-foot-tall painted steel sculpture Light Up!, commissioned by Westinghouse and originally displayed in downtown Pittsburgh, can be found outside Posvar Hall in Forbes Quad between it and Hillman Library. Donated to and re-installed at Pitt in 1988, it was temporarily loaned to the Museum of Modern Art and displayed in front of the Seagram Building in New York City for a 1988 Tony Smith retrospective.

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