The Sculpture Garden with the Pavilion Cafe in the background.

The elegant, circular reflecting fountain

Cheval Rouge (Red Horse), an outdoor mobile by Alexander Calder (1974), exhibits an appealing grace and, though steadfastly abstract, evoke a friendly resonance with natural forms. Here the sleek, tapering legs and tensile up-thrust “neck” recall the muscularity and power of a thoroughbred.

Aurora, by Mark di Suvero (1992 – 1993), is a tour de force of design and engineering with its sophisticated structural system that distributes eight tons of steel over three diagonal supports to combine massive scale with elegance of proportion. Several beams converge within a central circular hub and then explode outward, imparting tension and dynamism to the whole. The title comes from a poem about New York City by Federico García Lorca (Spanish, 1898–1936). The steel forms a letter “k”(the artist has said the work is a portrait of his wife, Kate).

An Entrance into the Paris Metropolitan, by architect Hector Guimard, was one of three entrance styles he designed for the Paris Metro that were industrially produced in painted cast iron and bronze until 1913. The designs were meant to clearly mark the new subway entrances and make the novel form of mass transportation more attractive to riders.

Spider, by Louise Bourgeois (1996 – 1997), appears as looming and powerful protectresses, yet is delicate and vulnerable. Louise Bourgeois used the spider as the central protagonist in her art during the last decades of her life.

Graft, by Roxy Paine (2008–2009), was added to the Sculpture Garden on the 10th anniversary of its opening. It is part of a series of stainless steel sculptures the artist refers to as “Dendroids,” a term that describes a tree-like, branching form, but also evokes an artificially engineered or mutant body.

Cubi XI, a steel abstract sculpture by David Smith, is a stack of three cubes and four rectangular boxes welded together and installed on a cube-shaped base.  Part of the Cubi series of 28 sculptures, it was constructed in 1963 and was installed on April 21, 1964.

Four-Sided Pyramid, by Sol LeWitt, 1997 – 1999), was constructed on site by a team of engineers and stonemasons. This terraced pyramid, which also alludes to the ziggurats of ancient Mesopotamia, relates to the 1961 repeal of early 20th-century setback laws for New York City skyscrapers.

Stele II, by Ellsworth Kelly (1973), is loosely based on a French kilometer marker, an object Kelly observed during his years in Paris after World War II. This sculpture, also essentially planar and upright will, over time, weather from exposure to the elements, developing an evenly corroded, non-reflective surface.

Untitled, by Joel Shapiro (1989), may bring to mind a human figure in motion, yet at the same time it can be understood as an abstract sculpture that explores the properties of balance and gravity. Originally constructed from plywood sheets, the elements of this work were carefully cast to retain the wood grain pattern.

Typewriter Eraser, by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen (1999), was based upon Claes’ childhood memories of playing with the the now obsolete typewriter eraser in his father’s office. Here the giant brush arcs back, conveying a sense of motion, as if the wheel-like eraser were rolling down the hill and making its way toward the gate of the garden.

Thinker on a Rock, by Barry Flanagan (1997), substitutes the hare for Auguste Rodin’s Thinker (1880), making an irreverent reference to one of the world’s best-known sculptures (a version of which may be seen in the West Building sculpture galleries).

Personnage Gothique, Oiseau-Éclair, one of the largest sculptures of Joan Miro (1974 – 1977), features a bird cast from an object the artist created, while the top portion was cast from a cardboard box and the arch-shaped form from a donkey’s collar. The objects combine to suggest a figure while, at the same time, the empty box and unoccupied harness imply absence.

AMOR, by Robert Indiana (1998 – 2006), is a play on the artist’s famous LOVE sculpture, Indiana’s design, with its distinctively inclined O, was constructed from red and yellow polychrome aluminum.