Peacock Sundial, (sculpture).

Peacock Sundial, (sculpture).

Lee, Alice Stephana, 1893-1957, sculptor.

Gorham Manufacturing Company, founder.

Peacock Sundial, (sculpture).

Digital Reference:

Sundial: bronze; Base: stone.

A bronze peacock gnomon sits in the center of a bronze octagonal sundial marked with raised Roman numerals and the Latin phrase Lucem Demonstrat Umbra. The sundial is installed atop round pedestal base.

Animal -- Bird -- Peacock

Outdoor Sculpture -- Massachusetts -- Northampton

Administered by OPAL Real Estate Group, Springfield, Massachusetts

Located Round Hill Road, former campus of Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech, in front of Hubbard Hall, Northampton, Massachusetts 01060

Formerly administered by Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech, 45 Round Hill Road, Northampton, Massachusetts 01060

The sculpture was originally installed in front of Hubbard Hall on the former campus of Clarke School for the Deaf (later the Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech) in Northampton, Massachusetts. The artist, who lost her hearing as an infant, had attended the Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton, and had presented the peacock sundial to the former principal Miss Caroline Yale. In 2011, the Clarke School sold most of the campus property to the OPAL Real Estate Group with the provision that the Clarke School sculptures remain in place on the property.

As described in Patricia J. Fanning's "Artful Lives: The Francis Watts Lee Family and Their Times" (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2016), the peacock design was inspired by a class assignment given when the artist was a student at the Art Institute of Chicago. The assignment was to read "The Wicked Prince" by Hans Christian Anderson and create a work in clay based on the story. The original peacock sundial was cast in bronze by the Gorham Manufacturing Company. The work was first exhibited in New York at Tiffany's, and later at the Chicago League for the Hard of Hearing booth at the 1928 Woman's World's Fair. Following the exhibition, the artist noted in the newsletter for the Chicago Hearing Society that she was receiving orders for more casts.

Fanning, Patricia J., 2016.

Fanning, Patricia J., "Artful Lives: The Francis Watts Lee Family and Their Times," Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2016.

The information provided about this artwork was compiled as part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture database, designed to provide descriptive and location information on artworks by American artists in public and private collections worldwide.

Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture, Smithsonian American Art Museum, P.O. Box 37012, MRC 970, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012

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