Her recorded comments on Breaking Bread, and the voices of 100 other artists and historians revealing the untold histories of outdoor art along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and Kelly Drive are part of a free audio tour launched Thursday.
A project of the Fairmount Park Art Association, the Museum Without Walls Audio tells the stories behind 51 works of public art in a series of 35 stops. The project has some extremely cool technical features, but it also can be accessed by anyone capable of dialing a phone.
Philadelphia has more outdoor sculpture than any other city in the United States, says Penny Balkin Bach, the art association's executive director. Yet even long-time residents can find something new on these three-minute audio segments.
Three generations of Calders are featured: The Shakespeare Memorial and Swann Memorial Fountain (both on Logan Square) are by Alexander Stirling Calder; and Three Discs, One Lacking, is a 1968 work by his son Alexander Calder.
And, if you look through the frame of the Lacking disc, the statue of William Penn City Hall tower, done by the artist's grandfather Alexander Milne Calder, comes into view.
Some of the art work on the tour are familiar images (Randolph Rogers' Abraham Lincoln, for example, and Frederic Remington's Cowboy).
Others are on opposite ends of what many experts might consider a continuum of great works. (The Thinker by Auguste Rodin vs. Rocky by Thomas Schomberg).
And even potentially ho-hum stops become fascinating in light of the information offered.
Take, for example, the James A. Garfield Monument, created in 1895 by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and located on Kelly Drive south of the Girard Avenue Bridge.
The 20th President of the United States, Garfield is perhaps best remembered for his death. He was shot July 2, 1881 in the waiting room of the Baltimore and Potomac railroad depot and died of blood poisoning ten days later.
