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Contact: Kristen Levesque
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Large-scale Steel Sculpture by Vermont-based Artist David Stromeyer installed at Shelburne Museum
SHELBURNE, Vt. (August 11, 2022)— This week, Shelburne Museum installed its newest permanent collection acquisition, Faceted Rock, by Vermont-based sculptor David Stromeyer. This large-scale steel sculpture has a prominent place on the museum’s grounds near the Meeting House building and joins the museum’s outdoor sculpture collection.
For more than five decades, Stromeyer has created sculptures whose graphic forms, saturated colors, and complex, balanced compositions seem to defy steel’s material limits. Despite the weight of their materials and construction—including welded, cold-bent, half-ton steel plates—many of Stromeyer’s sculptures play with space and perception; they seem to defy gravity, appearing to float and extend upwards effortlessly in the landscape.
“We are honored to add this stunning monumental work by David Stromeyer to Shelburne Museum’s collection. Both in scale and how the work evokes a sense of wonder about the environment, Faceted Rock is right at home on the museum campus,” said Thomas Denenberg, John Wilmerding Director and CEO of Shelburne Museum. “I would like to thank David for his inspired creativity and Todd Lockwood for his support of our outdoor sculpture program.”
Faceted Rock is the first in a series of large-scale sculptures informed by the artist’s two-year exploration of a single Vermont fieldstone. “It represents, in all kinds of ways, almost spiritually, exploring [this field stone’s] density and shape, etcetera,” Stromeyer explained.
The 46 facets of this monolith feature a metallic paint that fractures natural light across its bold geometry, highlighting its abstract form. Epitomizing Stromeyer’s expressive and technical dexterity working with steel, Faceted Rock embodies the soul and identity of place and maker.
Meet the Artist Event
Friday, September 2
5 p.m. to 6 p.m., Free admission.
Meet artist David Stromeyer in person on Friday, September 2, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. during the Free First Friday Eve event at Shelburne Museum. Learn more about the artist and the newly installed Faceted Rock.
About David Stomeyer
David Stromeyer (born 1946) is an American abstract sculptor who is best known for his large-scale, outdoor, painted steel sculptures. Stromeyer attended Dartmouth College where he skied competitively and continued his study of mathematics. He graduated with a degree in Studio Art, and went on to study film at UCLA. In 1970, Stromeyer purchased a 200-acre former dairy farm in Northern Vermont’s Cold Hollow Mountains, 10 miles from the Canada–US border. It was there that he began to work on larger, more architectural sculptures. In 2014, Stromeyer co-founded Cold Hollow Sculpture Park, which became a non-profit organization in 2018.
Stromeyer’s work can be found in the Smithsonian American Art Museum; deCordova Sculpture Park and Art Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts; Overland Park, Kansas; Strathmore Hall Sculpture Garden in Bethesda, Maryland; Cornell University, Plattsburgh State University, and in corporate and private collections across the country. Stromeyer’s book Art Making on the Land was published in 2021.
Image credit: David Stromeyer, Faceted Rock, 2004. Steel, epoxy, and metallic paint, 8 1/2 x 9 x 11 3/16 ft. Collection of Shelburne Museum, museum purchase, made possible by a gift from Todd R. Lockwood.
Hi-res images available upon request.
About Shelburne Museum
Founded in 1947 by trailblazing folk art collector Electra Havemeyer Webb (1888–1960), Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont, is the largest art and history museum in northern New England and Vermont’s foremost public resource for visual art and material culture. The Museum’s 45-acre campus is comprised of 39 buildings including the Pizzagalli Center for Art and Education and Webb Gallery featuring important American paintings by Andrew Wyeth, Winslow Homer, Grandma Moses, John Singleton Copley and many more. For more information, please visit shelburnemuseum.org.
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