Sun God: detail view of sculpture and top half of vine-covered arch
- Image
- View Full Item
- Created Date
- 1983
- Description
Sculpture and Installations
Garden and Landscape
Architecture and City Planning
De Saint Phalle's Sun God was the first work commissioned by the Stuart Collection and was her first outdoor commission in America. The exuberantly colored, fourteen-foot bird is placed atop a fifteen-foot concrete arch and sited on a grassy area between the Faculty Club and Mandeville Auditorium. "This was the first work in the Stuart Collection. Niki came with Jean Tinguely to look and talk about ideas. She came up with this large bird welcoming people to the campus. Students started the Sun God Festival the year after it was installed, 1984, and it has become the largest annual event on campus except graduations. The Sun God is made of fiberglass with a steel armature on the inside. The colors are acrylic resin and the crown is gold leaf. Students say that to get an A on an exam one must walk backwards through the A-shaped arch." - Mary Beebe, Stuart Collection Director
UC San Diego Library, UC San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0175 (https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/contact)
Mandeville Center: University of California, San Diego; La Jolla, California, United States
- Creator
Cohen, Becky (American photographer, contemporary)
Saint-Phalle, Niki de (French sculptor, writer, and scenographer, 1930-2002)
- Partner
- California Digital Library
- Contributing Institution
- UC San Diego, The UC San Diego Library
- Collection
- Stuart Collection Photographs
- Subjects
- Deities
Arches
Gilding
Humor
Women artists
Crowns (headdresses)
Vines
Color
Colossi
Birds
American
Contemporary
University of California, San Diego--History
Installations (visual works)
Sculpture (visual work)
Public art
Architecture (object genre)
Landscape architecture
Site-specific works
Caricatures - Type
- image
- Format
- Mixed media; concrete; fiberglass; gilding; gold leaf; acrylic paint; 14 feet (height)
- Language
- No linguistic content
- Rights
- Under copyright
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Use: This work is available from the UC San Diego Library. This digital copy of the work is intended to support research, teaching, and private study.
- Chicago citation style
- Cohen, Becky (American photographer, contemporary), Saint-Phalle, Niki de (French sculptor, writer, and scenographer, 1930-2002). Sun God: detail view of sculpture and top half of vine-covered arch. 1983. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America, https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb1264390d. (Accessed April 20, 2024.)
- APA citation style
- Cohen, Becky (American photographer, contemporary), Saint-Phalle, Niki de (French sculptor, writer, and scenographer, 1930-2002), (1983) Sun God: detail view of sculpture and top half of vine-covered arch. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America, https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb1264390d
- MLA citation style
- Cohen, Becky (American photographer, contemporary), Saint-Phalle, Niki de (French sculptor, writer, and scenographer, 1930-2002). Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America <https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb1264390d>.