<i>The Thinker</i> Heads West
The Thinker Heads West
The DIA’s cast of Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker hits the road the week of May 21, traveling west to take up temporary residence in Grand Rapids. The Thinker is being moved from its usual perch in front of the museum to allow work to be done to the Woodward entrance. It’s not the first time The Thinker has been on the move; the sculpture has actually been moved three times since arriving in Detroit from Germany in 1922 as a gift of Horace H. Rackham. The monumental bronze was first placed outside the original Detroit Museum of Art building on Jefferson Avenue. The museum moved the sculpture inside the Great Hall when the Cret building opened on Woodward Avenue in 1927. The Thinker moved twice more—when it was relocated outside the building in front of the Woodward entrance and then repositioned in its current location when fountains were added to the Benson and Edith Ford Plaza in 1981.
A crane will lift the nearly 2,000 pound Thinker from its base and place it on a series of pallets, which will then be loaded into a truck for the 200-mile trip west to the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids. The 12,000 pound based for the sculpture will stay in Detroit. The Thinker will return to Detroit when repairs to the plaza and Woodward Avenue entrance are completed, probably in mid-October.
Meijer Gardens is a spectacular venue for The Thinker, a garden vista not unlike the one belonging to the German doctor who commissioned the DIA’s cast from Rodin. The Thinker joins a cast of Rodin’s Eve, already on view in the gardens. The sculpture awaits visits from the many West Michigan art lovers. For more information on the Frederick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, including hours and directions, visit www.meijergardens.org.
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