Another Park

A few days after you had the perfect day in Brooklyn, I drove up to the lovely Storm King Art Center to hear a talk by Jonathan Lippincott, a talented book designer and the author of the book Large Scale. The son of the man who founded Lippincott, Inc., Jonathan slide-presented the history of the company (and of 1960s/'70s government aid to the arts) and then, walking outside of Storm King's conference room, showed some of the sculptures fabricated by Lippincott for pretty much most of America's major late 20th-century sculptors. My fave anecdote was about how Louise Nevelson worked à la collage on her sculptures, tending to move things around even after they were assembled. Jonathan wryly noted that Nevelson wore out a number of Lippincott welders.

It's the 50th Anniversary of Storm King, so the Art Center devoted space to an exhibit about Storm King's founding and founders, Ralph E. Ogden and H. Peter Stern, co-owners of Star Expansion Company in Mountainville. The display of Star's various hardware was pretty darned cool—perfect for a company that eventually became committed to modern sculpture.



Jonathan's uncle Alfred, also of the Lippincott Foundry, was at the event. When I asked if Lippincott, Inc. ever used Star's hardware, uncle Lippincott replied that they indeed used to—and that Star made a great anchor bolt.



The trip upstate whetted my appetite to both go back upstate and to stay city-side and see Storm King's presentation of works by Mark di Suvero at Governor's Island.