Artwork Details
- Title
- Tiger at Bay
- Artist
- Albino Manca (1898-1976)
- Year
- 1965
- Medium
- Bronze, on fieldstone base
- Dimensions
- Height 2'4 1/2", width 6'10", depth 2'4" (base height 1'3", width 1'11", depth 1'11")
Artwork Description
The artist, Sardinian-born Albino Manca, chose to represent this fierce and commanding cat posed in a defensive position, perhaps warding off its main predator and enemy – man. Albino Manca was a professor of art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome and lived most of his career in New York.
He exhibited this bronze sculpture at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1965, where it was purchased by Association for Public Art (then known as the Fairmount Park Art Association) in 1966 and installed at ground level in a natural setting. The tiger wears a defiant snarl; the natural rock of the base reinforces the image of a wild beast cornered in its lair.
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 the Fairmount Park Art Association)
Owned by the City of Philadelphia