Griffis Sculpture Park is a sculpture park located between Ashford Hollow and East Otto, New York in Cattaraugus County, New York. The 425-acre (1.72 km2) outdoor art museum, which was created by artist Larry W. Griffis Jr in 1966, was the first sculpture park in the United States. It features more than 250 works of art created by over 100 artists, and also serves as a nature preserve, with 10 miles (16 km) of trails. Griffis founded the Ashford Hollow Foundation for the Visual and Performing Arts to administer the park, which was most recently headed by Simon Griffis, son of Larry Griffis, until Simon's death at Zoar Valley in June 2010. Other members of the Griffis family have also served on the AHF board of directors.
The park draws 35,000 visitors a year. Admission is $5 per person, which is paid on a volunteer basis in a collection bin near the entrance to the park. The park is also supported by private donations and fund raisers. The park is open from May to October.
Famous quotes containing the words sculpture and/or park:
“Ah, to build, to build!
That is the noblest art of all the arts.
Painting and sculpture are but images,
Are merely shadows cast by outward things
On stone or canvas, having in themselves
No separate existence. Architecture,
Existing in itself, and not in seeming
A something it is not, surpasses them
As substance shadow.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)
“Linnæus, setting out for Lapland, surveys his “comb” and “spare shirt,” “leathern breeches” and “gauze cap to keep off gnats,” with as much complacency as Bonaparte a park of artillery for the Russian campaign. The quiet bravery of the man is admirable.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)