Summer of Sculpture: Celebrating the Familiar

Now extended through Labor Day Monday, the Dallas Arboretum debuts artist Seward Johnson’s Celebrating the Familiar exhibit, a collection of 30 sculptures throughout the garden as this summer exhibition. Following a career as a painter, Johnson began sculpting.

Now, more than 450 of his life-size cast bronze figures are part of museums around the world and in private collections, as well as in Times Square and Rockefeller Center in New York City, Les Halles in Paris and Via Condotti in Rome.

Johnson’s first sculpture, Stainless Girl, won the grand prize in the U.S. Steel Design in Steel Competition. Later, his realistic bronze works won him accolades across the globe. His sculptures of humans performing familiar tasks in an ordinary life were meant to collect the “Beautiful Moments” in our lives.

Johnson’s goal was not to just create figures performing routine tasks, but also to celebrate the familiar and to recognize the great value within. These familiar tasks can often seem burdensome, but they are part of what makes us human and connects us to others.

August Dollar Days: August 1–31, open 9am–5pm. In the heat of August, the Arboretum is celebrating Dollar Days with $2 general admission and $5 parking.