The UBS Art Gallery

Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907) Abraham Lincoln, 1885 Bronze 50.5 x 44 x 29” Collection of the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site

Irish-born, New York-raised sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens is best known for his public monuments, including the New York landmarks Admiral David Glasgow Farragut Monument (1877-81) in Madison Square Park, the gilded Sherman Monument (1892-1903) in Grand Army Plaza, and the Peter Cooper Monument (1894-7) in Cooper Square. Saint-Gaudens completed more than 20 public sculptures for American cities, including the somber Standing Lincoln (1884-7) in Chicago, and more than 80 portrait reliefs, as well as coin designs and decorative sculpture for domestic interiors. A master of the Beaux-Arts style, his work incorporates a naturalistic approach to sculpting the human figure, a dynamic treatment of form and fluidly modeled surfaces.

From 1885 until his death in 1907, Saint-Gaudens lived part-time and eventually year-round at his home and studio in rural Cornish, New Hampshire. The 150-acre property is now the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, maintained by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. The Fellowship of the Saint-Gaudens Memorial, established in 1977, recognizes mid-career sculptors whose body of work demonstrates exceptional talent. Fellows are nominated and chosen by a jury of trustees, artists and curators; the current committee consists of Memorial trustees Ivan Chermayeff, John R. Gilman, Grace F. Knowlton, Charles A. Platt, Thayer Tolles, Jennifer J. Vorbach and Byron Bell, as well as advisor Allan Schwartzman. Saint-Gaudens Fellows receive grants and the opportunity to exhibit their work at the site.

Works on view in Nine Contemporary Sculptors by artists Judy Pfaff (1996 Saint-Gaudens Fellow) and Tara Donovan (2003 Fellow) feature commonplace objects powerfully transformed by context, construction or combination. Judy Pfaff’s installation works Milagro (1991) and Straw Into Gold (1990) are sprawling assemblages of glass, wire, aluminum and tin cans, filled with energy, emotion and controlled chaos. Tara Donovan’s work Toothpicks (2004), a staggeringly large collection of standard wooden toothpicks, explores how an everyday object can exude monumental strength.

Judy Pfaff Milagro, 1991 Wire, aluminum duct, plastic and blown glass 78 x 60 x 102” Collection of the artist

Tara Donovan Toothpicks, 2004 Wooden toothpicks 50 x 50 x 50” © Tara Donovan, Courtesy PaceWildenstein, New York

Andrew Topolski Nothingman, May 2005 – work in progress Mixed media 26” x 6’ x 7.5’ Collection of the artist

Artists Petah Coyne (1987 Fellow) and Andrew Topolski (1986 Fellow) also work with found materials, creating haunting sculptures filled with mystery and foreboding. Petah Coyne’s 2001 work Untitled #1055 (Mary-Altar), a devotional altar covered with dripping wax, addresses Coyne’s signature themes of loss, nature and spirituality. The biomorphic sculpture exudes a vulnerable quality, juxtaposing physical mass with fragility. Andrew Topolski’s Nothingman (2005, work in progress), a mixed media construction, is also infused with a sense of mystery. The combination of disparate objects, including a caged goose hanging by a noose, creates an ominously eerie image.

Works on view by artists Do-Ho Suh (2001 Fellow) and Alison Saar (1997 Fellow) explore cultural identity and memory. Do-Ho Suh, a New York-based Korean artist, often addresses issues of displacement and the meaning of home in his work. Gate, Small (2003), a silk rendering of the entry structure of his family home in Korea, is a symbol of transition that connects East and West, home and away, past and present, and familiar and foreign. Alison Saar draws upon her African, Native American and European heritage to imbue her work with a mythic past and address contemporary issues of race and gender. Figural sculptures Kiss on a Rope (2001) and Stone Soul (1995) are composed of humble found materials that Saar believes contain ancestral spirits and wisdom of the past.

Do-Ho Suh Gate, Small, 2003 Silk and stainless steel tube 128.54 x 83.27 x 39.37” Courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York

Alison Saar Kiss on a Rope, 2001 Wood, tin and rope 72 x 16 x 17” Courtesy of the Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York and the artist

Architecture and spatial relations influence artists Walter Dusenbery (1984 Fellow), Alex McFarlane (1983 Fellow) and Peter Shelton (2000 Fellow). Walter Dusenbery creates majestic outdoor sculptures inspired by classical architecture, and the exhibition will feature five studies for monumental sculptures created from rough blocks of stone. Alex McFarlane began his ongoing work The City in 1987, a conceptual building project constructed from solid graphite. Featuring nameless avenues and looming, repetitive building masses, the graphite lends a dark, shadowy atmosphere to the work. Peter Shelton’s 2003 mixed media works Whitebuttons and Purplegulch address interactions between interior and exterior spaces. These biologically influenced fantasy environments are viscerally familiar and disconcertingly exotic.

Alex McFarlane The City, 1987 – work in progress Graphite blocks 4’6” x 15’8.25” Collection of the artist

Peter Shelton Purplegulch, 2003 Mixed media 60 x 42 x 42” Courtesy of LA Louver Gallery, Venice, California

Walter Dusenbury Study for Tempio Bretton, 1981 Yellow travertine 38.5 x 10.75 x 10.75” Collection of the artist

The Saint-Gaudens Memorial was incorporated in 1919 to preserve the home, studios, gardens and extensive collections of Saint-Gaudens, located in Cornish, New Hampshire. The site was operated as a public museum by the Memorial until 1964, when it was donated to the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. Today the private, non-profit Memorial and the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site collaborate to maintain the property's designation as a "living memorial" to the great sculptor and to increase public awareness of his life, his world, and his work. The site is open from May to October and features the artist's residence, "Aspet," studios and exhibition galleries and monumental sculptures displayed outdoors. The Saint-Gaudens Memorial sponsors educational programs, temporary art exhibitions, a summer concert series, and a fellowship program to assist artists of promise.

UBS has a longstanding and ongoing commitment to the support of the arts and culture. UBS sponsors four exhibitions each year in The UBS Art Gallery, located in the lobby of its building at 1285 Avenue of the Americas, New York City. Through its exhibition program, the Gallery offers non-profit New York-area arts and cultural organizations a midtown Manhattan exhibition space and the opportunity to introduce their programs to a new audience. The UBS Art Gallery enables many institutions to organize and mount exhibitions that might not otherwise be seen. These exhibitions encourage interest in the arts among the hundreds of employees, clients and members of the general public who pass through the UBS building each day.

UBS also has its own art collection. The UBS Art Collection is one of the world’s finest assemblages of contemporary art and has traveled to major museums throughout the U.S. A group of works loaned from The UBS Art Collection, along with 40 works donated to The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), was recently on view in The International Council Gallery, one of the Museum’s two new spacious sixth-floor temporary exhibition galleries. Another exhibition of works from the Collection, entitled The Figurative Impulse: Works from The UBS Art Collection, will go on view at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico from September 24 to January 8, 2006. Additionally, selected works will also be shown at the Fondation Beyeler in Switzerland this fall.

UBS, one of the world’s leading financial firms, is the largest wealth manager, a top tier investment banking and securities firm, a key asset manager and the leader in Swiss retail and commercial banking. Headquartered in Zurich and Basel, UBS employs over 68,000 people and has offices in 50 countries. It is a Swiss public company listed on the SWX Swiss Stock Exchange, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). In the U.S., UBS is one of the biggest private client businesses with a client base of nearly 2 million private clients and approximately 7500 financial advisers in over 350 offices.

Exhibitions at The UBS Art Gallery

Dutch Treats: Contemporary Illustration from the Netherlands
Organized by The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art
December 15, 2005 – February 24, 2006


Great Pots: Contemporary Ceramics from Function to Fantasy
Organized by The Newark Museum
March 9 – May 19, 2006


Selected for Myself: American Etchings of the 1880s
Organized by The Parrish Art Museum
June 1 – August 11, 2006


Walker Evans
Organized by Yale University School of Art
August 24 – November 9, 2006



Hours and Admission

The UBS Art Gallery is located in the UBS Building at 1285 Avenue of the Americas (between 51st and 52nd Streets) in New York City. The Gallery is on the ground floor of the building and exhibition hours are Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. Admission is free.


**For recorded exhibition information: (212) 713-2885**