Pyramid HillSculpture Park and Museum is a 300-acre non-profit park which features 80 large sculptures and is located in Hamilton, Ohio. In addition to outdoor sculptures, the grounds also feature a pioneer house dating to the 1820s with an unusual arched ceiling. A 10,000-square-foot Ancient Sculpture Museum opened in 2007 and includes antiquities from the Greek, Roman, Etruscan and Egyptian civilizations. The museum models a traditional ancient Roman home and houses the founder’s ancient sculpture collection. A Museum Gallery opened in 2016 and is dedicated to showcase contemporary regional and international artists.
History
Harry T. Wilks purchased the land in 1987 to build a home, the Pyramid House. He gradually acquired adjacent pieces of land, built roads, small lakes and trails, while acquiring large sculptures. When it opened in 1996, André Emmerich, writing for The Atlantic, considered it "the most beautiful natural setting of any art park in the country". In 1997, Wilks established the non-profit organization that runs the park. In addition to its permanent collection, it hosts temporary exhibits. In 2018 the Board of Trustees conducted a nationwide search for a new Executive Director, and appointed Sean FitzGibbons in 2019. FitzGibbons has worked on the design and fabrication of publicart installations in San Antonio, Knoxville, Houston and Seattle. A graduate of the University of Texas and Washington University in St. Louis, where he earned a master's of fine arts degree, FitzGibbons has trained in sculpture and visual arts and has mounted more than 20 personal exhibitions in the past decade at galleries and conferences throughout the U.S.
Collection
Highlights of the collection include “Cincinnati Story” by George Sugarman, a colorful structure that once stood in downtown Cincinnati, the “Age of Stone,” a huge work by Jon Isherwood that’s composed of nine pieces of massive granite ranging from 12- to 18-feet-tall and has been compared to Stonehenge, and the park’s dramatic signature piece, “Abracadabra” by Alexander Liberman, who also constructed the welded steel “Laocoon” and Torre II. Artist Bill Barrett also has a permanent piece in the collection.
