Old Man, Young Man, the Future (1966)

by Leonard Baskin (1922 - 2000)

Photo Caption: Photo Laura Griffith for the Association for Public Art
  • Title

    Old Man, Young Man, the Future

  • Artist

    Leonard Baskin (1922 - 2000)

  • Year

    1966

  • Location

    Society Hill Towers, 2nd and Locust Streets

  • Medium

    Bronze, on brick base

  • Dimensions

    Height: Old Man 6’5″; Young Man 6’3″; The Future 4’3″ (base height 5’3″, width 10', depth 1'9")

  • Themes

    The Animal Kingdom

Commissioned by the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority

Owned by the property owner

At A Glance

  • Commissioned as part of the Redevelopment Authority’s 1% program

  • A young man, standing, and a seated older man confront a winged creature representing the future

  • This sculpture is artist Leonard Baskin’s first major sculpture for an outdoor setting

A young man, standing, and a seated older man confront a winged creature representing the future. According to artist Leonard Baskin, the mythical bird also signifies external reality, “which is good and bad, promising and ominous.” The Society Hill Towers complex was designed by I. M. Pei as a landmark in Philadelphia’s urban renewal. Baskin’s work, his first major sculpture for an outdoor setting, was commissioned as part of the Redevelopment Authority’s Percent for Art program.

Old Man Young Man The Future
Photo Alec Rogers © 2014 for the Association for Public Art

Calling himself a “moral realist,” he denounced nonfigurative art as “an art of cowardice, a triumph of the trivial, a squandering of treasure.” He has stated that one of the greatest goals of art is to convey a deep human experience to the viewer. “The human figure,” he said, “is the image of all men and of one man. It contains all and it can express all.”

Adapted from Public Art in Philadelphia by Penny Balkin Bach (Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1992).

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