Peter Fillerup, 1983
John and Virginia Walsh Eulich of Dallas, both 1951 alumni, commissioned this version of the Jayhawk for the Adams Alumni Center, 13th Street and Oread Avenue. It was dedicated Nov. 19, 1983, about six months after the center opened.
At the suggestion in 1953 of Chancellor Franklin D. Murphy, this large cast-stone fountain was purchased with $1,300 in private funds from the Erkins Studio in New York.
It was placed in a circular terrace surrounded by three benches at the south end of Alumni Place; Facilities Planning landscaped the site, near the retaining wall behind Miller and Watkins scholarship halls.
The fountain was authorized in October 1952 as a memorial to alumnae on the 50th anniversary of the founding of Lambda chapter at KU.
Students, alumni and friends donated about $5,000 to the construction fund; the balance of the $11,800 cost was contributed by KU Endowment’s Elizabeth M. Watkins Fund.
Katie Kring, 2003
In 2003 the Lawrence Convention and Visitors Bureau sponsored “Jayhawks on Parade,” a five-month exhibit of 5-foot, molded fiberglass Jayhawks decorated in themes including Vincent van Gogh, patchwork quilts, cubism, mosaics, and abstractionism.
The 30 Jayhawks were decorated by area artists and placed around Lawrence; many later were auctioned for charity.
Alumni Jill S. Docking and Tom Docking of Wichita gave $500,000 toward the construction of a gateway at the northeast edge of the main campus, near the Kansas Union. It comprises a fountain, brick pylon and plantings fitted into an oval stone surround.
The Dockings’ children and his brother, William, also are alumni, as were his father and grandfather, former Kansas governors Robert Docking (1967-75) and George Docking (1957-61); and his mother, Meredith Gear Docking. Tom Docking was lieutenant governor of Kansas 1983-87.
Joseph Robaldo Frazee and Vitruvius Frazee, 1901-02
Master mason and sculptor Joseph Robaldo Frazee and his son Vitruvius Frazee carved the 12 creatures that sat on pedestals lining the seventh floor of Dyche Hall in 1901 and 1902.
The cottonwood limestone statues, each 44 inches tall, resemble the gargoyles used on medieval buildings to disguise drainpipes; the Dyche creatures are “grotesques,” because they lack the pipe and spout that permit gargoyles to function as downspouts.
Daniel Chester French, 1924
James Woods Green (1842-1919) was the beloved first head of the KU Department of Law and the first dean when it became the School of Law in 1889; he served from 1878 until his death Nov. 4, 1919. A group of alumni and friends quickly formed an association to create a statue in memory of the beloved teacher and mentor.
Charles Umlauf, 1964
The sculpture, mounted on a black-granite base at the southeast entrance to Nichols Hall in the West District, is drawn from the Greek myth of Daedalus and his son. Icarus.
They tried to escape imprisonment on the isle of Crete by flying on wings whose feathers were attached with wax. Icarus was so exhilarated by flying that he rose too close to the sun, which melted the wax; he is portrayed as he plunges from the sky.
Richard Hollander, 1981
The Spencer Museum of Art purchased this abstract sculpture in 1981, after it had been on loan. Kansas City artist Richard Hollander (1911-91) fabricated the work of welded steel painted black in 1970; it is 21.5 feet long, 5 feet high and 4 feet wide. Its three groupings of discs connected by rectangular bars represent the experience of traveling on the interstate highway. It is sited in Marvin Grove about midway between Bailey Hall on the south and the art museum on the north.
Mike Elwell
This flat-panel bronze of a Jayhawk in profile at the Visitor Center is a gift of the Class of 1999. Elwell ia an alumnus who holds a 1964 undergraduate degree and a 1967 law degree.
construction.
Elden C. Tefft, 1958
This distinctive Jayhawk in front of Strong Hall was commissioned by the Class of 1956 and designed and cast by Elden C. Tefft, professor of sculpture. He has said he was inspired by the sharp-beaked “fighting Jayhawks” that were mascots from 1929 to 1946, but the statue also has been called “the Pterodactyl.”
This memorial, honoring 44 members of the university community who died in the Korean conflict, was dedicated April 16, 2005.
The brick and stone terrace overlooks Potter Lake west of the campanile. Its centerpiece is a 7-foot copper sculpture, “Korean Cranes Rising,” by design professor Jon Havener. The four entwined cranes, ancient symbols of peace in the Korean culture, represent the four nations in the conflict: the United States, China, North Korea and South Korea.
Bernard “Poco” Frazier. 1942
Elements of Art Moderne and Art Deco combine on the facade of Lindley Hall. Two three-story columns mark the main entry, and three inset limestone bas-reliefs of geologists and engineers are executed in a socialist-realist style.
Robert H. Malott and his wife, Elizabeth Hubert Malott, donated $1 million to create this gateway on the western edge of the main campus in honor of his parents, former Chancellor Deane W. Malott and Eleanor Sisson Malott.
It comprises a curved, 70-foot stone wall engraved "University of Kansas" and a marker to the left of the Visitor Center entrance reading “Malott Gateway.” A brick pedestrian plaza is landscaped with trees and shrubs.
Bernard "Poco" Frazier (1906-76) was a 1929 design graduate who in the early 1940s established the first KU classes in sculpture; he left the university for a number of years but returned in 1956 as sculptor-in-residence and later professor of sculpture. The bronze doors at the north and south entrances of the Memorial Campanile were dedicated June 6, 1955. Each of the four doors, cast at foundries in Mexico City, is 9 feet tall and 3 feet 3 inches wide and contains three panels.
This W-shaped drive runs from West Campus Road east to Mississippi Street north of Snow, Strong and Bailey halls. It was designed to complement the Memorial Campanile, honoring the 277 KU alumni, students, faculty and staff who died in World War II and the more than 7,000 who served.
Elden C. Tefft, 1982
This filigreed bronze, evoking the image on the University seal, was planned to complement the stained-glass window “Burning Bush,” designed by Smith Hall architect Charles L. Marshall of Topeka.
The window was donated by Mr. and Mrs. L. Allyn Laybourn in memory of his parents, the Rev. Lemuel and Susan M. Laybourn, and executed by Jacoby Studios of St. Louis.
Installed in a circular landscaped area south of Gertrude Sellards Pearson and west of Corbin residence halls are several artifacts of KU’s earliest days.
The bronze medallion of this marker, 16.5 inches in diameter, bears the image of a conestoga wagon pulled by oxen and guided by a pioneer.
The work of sculptors J.E. and L.G. Fraser, it is mounted outside Lindley Hall on a limestone plinth about 4 feet tall and nearly 6 feet long. The whole is surrounded by a low ovoid stone wall; plantings and a flagpole complete the marker.
Kwan Wu, 1997
This bronze of KU coaching great Forrest C. “Phog” Allen, dressed in an athlete’s sweatsuit and holding a basketball, is 8 feet 8 inches tall.
It is mounted facing east on a granite base at the entrance to the Booth Family Hall of Athletics on the east side of Allen Fieldhouse. The fieldhouse was named for Allen when it opened March 1, 1955; he retired in 1956 and died in 1974.
When it was dedicated Dec. 13, 1997 -- the 90th anniversary of the first basketball game Allen coached at KU -- it was sited slightly farther north and faced south.
Chancellor Franklin Murphy and his two daughters “rediscovered” Pioneer Cemetery during a spring 1952 walk on undeveloped property west of Iowa Street and south of Irving Hill Road.
His interest piqued, he asked the KU Endowment Association to negotiate with the City of Lawrence to acquire the land, which the association did for $1 in May 1953.
James Bass, 1981
When Topeka artist James Bass (b. 1933) created this welded bronze piece, he said he was endeavoring “to reconcile the visual landscape of the 20th century with the textures and forms of the Kansas landscape.”
The piece, 7 feet 2 inches tall and almost 4 feet wide, was donated by the Pi Deuteron chapter of Phi Gamma Delta to commemorate its centennial May 2, 1981.
Dale Eldred, 1969
This large steel sculpture — 35 feet tall, 24 feet wide and weighing more than 30 tons — is by sculptor Dale Eldred (1933-93) and was a gift to the Spencer Museum of Art from Mr. and Mrs. John M. Simpson, who had exhibited it at their home in Salina, Kan.
In June 1981 the piece was delivered to a site selected by a university committee that included Charles Eldredge, director of the Spencer Museum of Art, on a triangular piece of land directly south of the Prairie Acre at Sunnyside Avenue and Sunflower Road.
Louise Nevelson, 1971
This aluminum piece, painted black and mounted on the north promenade of the Spencer Museum of Art, is by Louise Nevelson and was purchased by the Spencer Museum in 1983 with support from the Price R. & Flora Reid Foundation, the Spencer Fund, KU Endowment and the National Endowment for the Arts.
It is 8 feet tall, 1 foot 10 inches wide and 2 feet 6 inches deep and is mounted on a base approximately 2 feet square.
Marjorie Whitney, 1932
Above the main entry of the former Watkins Memorial Hospital, which opened in 1932, is a large limestone relief depicting St. George slaying the Dragon, representing disease.
It was designed by Professor Marjorie Whitney, a 1929 alumna and chair of KU’s design (1940-68). Other Whitney ornamentations on Twente include a sculpted door and bas-reliefs of animals, garlands and flowers on the tower.
Zhu Ming, 1985
This large piece, on the east lawn of Green Hall, was purchased by the Spencer Museum in 1987 with support from the Wescoe Fund, endowed by former Chancellor and Mrs. W. Clarke Wescoe.
The piece honors Barbara Wescoe’s father, Judge Willard M. Benton, a 1920 alumnus of the School of Law. It was dedicated Oct. 31, 1987.
The inscription on the Spooner Hall portico reads: “Whoso findeth wisdom findeth life,” and a sandstone owl, the symbol of wisdom, sits in a niche on the gable.
The owl may have been designed by the Spooner architect, Henry van Brunt (1832-1903), a partner in the Kansas City, Mo., firm of Van Brunt & Howe. He was an 1854 graduate of Harvard University and a student of Richard Morris Hunt, the most notable American proponent of the Gothic Revival and Renaissance Revival styles.
Frederick C. Hibbard, 1904
The first sculpture on campus, The Pioneer was a 1905 gift of Simeon B. Bell of Wyandotte County, Kan., a physician and real-estate speculator. In memory of his late wife, Bell donated land and funding for the Eleanor Taylor Bell Memorial Hospital in Kansas City, Kan., which became the University of Kansas School of Medicine and the University of Kansas Hospital.
Thomas F. Roberts and Otto Widman, consultants, 1920
To honor World War I casualties, the Victory Highway Association began a campaign in 1921 to set a statue of a female bald eagle defending her eaglets at every county line along U.S. 40, then a transcontinental highway. The Douglas County statue, said to be the second in the country, was paid for by donations from local women’s clubs; its base was set on land donated by H.G. Van Neste north of the intersection of U.S. 40 and Kansas 32 at the Douglas-Leavenworth county line and dedicated May 27, 1929.
The Class of 1997 gave this reproduction of the University Seal depicting Moses kneeling before the burning bush. The image is surrounded by a Latin inscription that in English reads, “I will see this great vision in which the bush does not burn.”
The bronze medallion is 36 inches in diameter and mounted on a marble slab set on a triangular stone base about 4 feet tall. The whole is set in a large, raised rectangular planter topped by a stone bench in front of Budig Hall/Hoch Auditoria.
John Whitfield, 1985
This copper and bronze sculpture by Kansas artist John Whitfield, dedicated Nov. 1, 1985, was financed by state fees that also paid for a 1983 addition to Moore Hall.
Its inscription notes that it is a “memento to the oil-field roustabout who does the nitty-gritty work” of the industry in Kansas.
The piece is 7 feet 3 inches tall and 4 feet 7 inches wide; it is mounted at the south entrance of Moore on a base comprising three large slabs of Kansas limestone.
On May 25, 1986, KU's Vietnam War Memorial, the first on-campus commemoration in the nation, was dedicated. It honors 59 students and alumni who died or were declared missing in the conflict.
The 65-foot, L-shaped wall of native Kansas limestone, at the west end of Memorial Drive, was created by Doran Abel, an architecture major; Stephen Grabow, professor of architecture; and Greg Wade, KU’s landscape architect. Student Senate appropriations and donations from students, alumni and veterans funded the memorial.
Craig Dan Goseyun, 1994
This bronze sculpture, 8 feet tall and weighing 3,000 pounds, signifies the importance of water to all living things. It is the gift of Clarence J. and Hazel M. Beck of Rye, N.H., to commemorate the 1994 centennial of Spooner Hall.
Clarence Beck is a 1943 metallurgical engineering graduate and a pioneer in nuclear and atomic research; in 1992 he received the Distinguished Engineering Service Award.
The Arthur D. Weaver Memorial Fountain Court on the south side of Spooner Hall was dedicated June 20, 1960, in memory of the longtime Lawrence department-store owner. It was the gift of son Arthur B. Weaver and daughter Amarette W. Veatch and their families.
A fountain near the center held a sculpture, and several others were mounted in the courtyard. One piece, "Portrait of August Renoir" by Aristide Malliol, was stolen in 1967; the others were removed to storage.
