Monroe by Seward Johnson, which returned to Grounds for Sculpture last
year, was taken down Monday. For now, the sculpture has been taken
to The Seward Johnson Atelier for restoration. Johnson’s curator is
currently in negotiations with a museum in Australia and a site in
Seoul, South Korea to find a new home for the work.
Workers equipped
with a crane, cherry picker and an arsenal of tools, spent the day
breaking the statue into its four sections, torso, legs, skirt and base –
a process they called “de-installing.”The sculpture, finished in
2011, is made of stainless
steel and aluminum, weighs in at about 32,000
pounds and can withstand winds of up to 150 mph, Grounds for Sculpture
officials have said. The sculpture, depicts the famous pose the
Hollywood star struck in the 1955 film “The Seven Year Itch,” her white
dress billowing up over a New York City subway grate, stood in Chicago
and Palm Springs, Calif. After three years as a tourist attraction,
“Forever Marilyn” journeyed back to Hamilton in April 2014, arriving at
the Grounds for Sculpture on a truck as two dozen people cheered and
took pictures. During the cross-country journey, people snapped
photos of the sculpture in parking lots and along highways and posted
them on social media.Admirers of Seward Johnson’s sculptures can see
many more of this works at Grounds For Sculpture, including other
pieces of monumental scale.
