Overview
- The work was installed overnight earlier in the week on the Utah Museum of Fine Arts’ south lawn and formally celebrated on Saturday, drawing steady crowds of visitors.
- The sculpture is one of 86 iterations and one of only nine at this large scale, featuring the signature slanted “O” that made the design an icon of American pop art.
- Before its relocation to Salt Lake City, the piece stood for more than two decades at 55th Street and 6th Avenue in New York City.
- The purchase totaled about $4.5 million, with $2.5 million from private donors and $2 million from state funds, with named supporters including the Coburn Family Trust, the John and Marcia Price Foundation, O.C. Tanner, the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation, Zions Bank, and a gift in honor of Scott and Jesselie Anderson from the Larry H. and Gail Miller Family Foundation.
- UMFA has accessioned the piece into its roughly 22,000-object permanent collection and committed to its long-term care, with reporting noting a 1999 casting and a purchase facilitated through Christie’s after the work became available for sale.