Jaime Gilmour May 2005
Chancellor Murphy had a strong personal interest in the arts as evidenced by his involvement in the Los Angeles County Art and Music Association, as well as his expansion of the College of Fine Arts at UCLA. At the suggestion of Murphy, a 3.4 acre landscaped open court was created in the center of the new North Campus buildings as a result of Murphy’s determination to curb the enclosure of open space.
“ All my life in academia, I’ve believed that a university campus ought to be a good deal more than just efficient and functional that it ought to have beauty in it; because I think that young people should be encouraged to grow up in the presence of beauty, to think of art as something you live with rather than something you just look at,” Murphy reflects in an oral history interview.
Despite the protests of some students who petitioned to halt the creation of the garden that would replace their parking, Murphy continued to work to realize his dream. Consulting Architect Cornell was happy to comply with the Chancellor’s request to beautify north campus and as early as 1963 he had began plans for an open court with concrete bunkers that would eventually contain sculptures. The first edition to the garden, “Song of the Vowels”, was originally displayed in front of the Dickson Art Center as a part of a Lipchitz exhibit in 1965. Murphy originally rejected art council member Lillian Weiner’s proposal to purchase the sculpture due to the large expense. However, the UCLA Art Council was able to purchase the 75,000-dollar sculpture with the help of Regent Norton Simon’s generous donation. With the advent of this first sculpture in 1965, the dream shared by Murphy and the campus architects to have a sculpture garden began to materialize. Click Here for information about the expansion of "The Arts at UCLA" during this time.
The following year, David Bright and his widow, Dolly Bright, gifted 12 more prestigious pieces to the school. Although this Beverly Hills industrialist had originally willed 25 percent of his collection of paintings to the school, Murphy talked to Mrs. Bright and discussed the possibility of trading the paintings for the magnificent sculptures that filled the late Mr. Bright’s estate.
“So here we were, needing lots of sculpture, having been willed an important collection of paintings, and with his widow not wishing to live in this great big estate.” (Murphy Oral History p. 224)
After visiting the recently landscaped northern campus where the sculptures were to be placed, Mrs. Bright readily agreed to the exchange. As more sculptures were gifted to the school throughout the next few years, Murphy hired Landscape Architect Hazlett and Professor Carter to organize the development of the garden. This consultant team worked with cardboard scale models to efficiently plan the arrangement for each of the over seventy pieces that are now displayed in the garden. Today the sculpture Garden is one of the most well-known and celebrated parts of campus due to the efforts of Chancellor Murphy and the UCLA Art Council. Dominating as the largest garden on the west coast, the UCLA Sculpture Garden has become one of the most distinguished gardens in the country.
“I’m prejudiced, obviously, but others tell me who are, I think, objective that they regard this as one of the most beautiful sculpture gardens in the United States, if not anywhere in the world. And the reason I think they do is that it’s laid about so people live with it.” (Murphy Oral History, p. 225)
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Works Cited:
Hamilton, Andres, and John B. Jackson. UCLA on the Move. The Ward Ritchie Press, 1969. 92-93.
Murphey, Franklin. Interview with James v. Mink. “My UCLA Chancellorship: An Utterly Candid View.” (1976): 237-40.
Nystrom, Richard K. An Interpretation Considering Architecture and Site. 1968. 172-74
Chu , Stella. “A Separate Peace.” Daily Bruin. 31 July 2000. 6 May 2005. www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/db/archivedarticles.asp?id=9928date=7/31/2000
Images:
"Campus Tours". Google Images. 23 May 2005
"Song of the Vowels". Google Images. 23 May 2005