Artwork Details
- Title
- Playing Angels
- Artist
- Carl Milles (1875 – 1955)
- Year
- 1950; purchased 1968; installed 1972
- Location
- Kelly Drive at Fountain Green Drive
- Medium
- Bronze, on concrete bases
- Dimensions
- Height 7′ (bases 20′–23′)
Artwork Description
Three slim angels concentrate raptly on their music as they hover above the grass along Kelly Drive. The work of Swedish-born artist Carl Milles, they are authorized casts of three originals at Millesgården in Stockholm, where they overlook that city’s harbor. Milles’ style combined conservative, pictorial elements with a poetic and popular spirit. His characteristically slender figures often have a childlike innocence and vulnerability that make them immediately appealing to the public.
Milles had originally created five Playing Angels, all intended for a private site in Philadelphia – a nursery or nursery school. When the plans dissolved, one angel went to Kansas City, a second went to Falls Church, Virginia, and the remaining three were incorporated into Millesgården, which authorized casts to be made for Association for Public Art (then known as Fairmount Park Art Association) for purchase. The Association purchased the angels in 1968 and installed them at their present site in 1972. Their placement on tall pedestals, similar to those at the Millesgården, was planned by the architectural firm of Bower and Fradley – a design awarded a silver medal by the Philadelphia chapter of the American Institute of Architects.
Content on this page was adapted from Public Art in Philadelphia by Penny Balkin Bach (Temple University Press, 1992). Bach was the longtime Executive Director of the Association for Public Art, working with the organization from 1980 to 2022.
Artwork Credits
Purchased by Association for Public Art (formerly Fairmount Park Art Association)
Owned by the City of Philadelphia
Artwork Media
Museum Without Walls
Voices:
JOHN A. BOWER, JR., FAIA is Emeritus Principal architect at BLT Architects.
MARIA WIBERG is the Educational Director at the Millesgården in Stockholm, Sweden.
Producer: Kara Oehler