Eagle

Lewis Iselin created Eagle to adorn the facade of the Whitney Museum of American Art’s second home at 22 West 54th Street in New York City. Iselin based the sculpture on the Art Deco eagle then used on the museum’s stationary. Art Deco is an artistic style that gained prominence in the 1920s and saw broad adoption in architecture, design, fine and decorative arts. Just as with Eagle, the style is noted for its vibrant geometric patterns and rich materials. Iselin’s sculpture perched on the second story of the Whitney’s building for twelve years, until 1966, when the museum moved to a new home and Eagle moved to storage.

In 1968, the artist William Walton convinced the Whitney to donate Eagle to the federal government for installation in the courtyard behind the historic houses on Lafayette Park, which had recently been saved by President and Mrs. Kennedy. Following the sculpture’s arrival, a crane hoisted Eagle over the houses and into the plaza, where it was attached to the rear brick facade. Curiously, the sculpture was installed in a manner that made removing it impossible without destroying the wall or sculpture. This made the sculpture’s 2004 conservation a challenge, as it required art conservators to remove two sections of the sculpture in order to unfasten it from the wall. Eagle was repaired and cleaned, which required stripping the sculpture down to bare metal, and then the artwork was patinated and regilded to return it to its original luster.