Books
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Dianne Durante, who maintains an excellent Web site of her essays and other musings on what she calls representational art, is the author of the somewhat esoteric "Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan." Ms. Durante gives you historical basics, but also confronts you with the aesthetics. How does the statue make you feel, she asks.
In 1988, the city's Art Commission and the Municipal Art Society published the compact catalog "Guide to Manhattan's Outdoor Sculpture."A handy reference organized into baseball-card-type pages.
- In 1975, Joseph Lederer and Arley Dondarin came out with "All Around Town: A Walking Guide to Outdoor Sculpture in New York City." To call it a walking guide is a bit of a misnomer; your first tour takes you in an awkward loop of Battery Park. But this book is full of nice, large photos and nimbly written descriptions, which mostly focus on the subject's place in history.
- Don Martin Reynolds's "Monuments and Masterpieces: Histories and View of Public Sculpture in New York City" was published in 1988. About 180 pages of large black-and-white photos of major sculpture with brief biographical-type information on each featured piece.
- "New York Civic Sculpture: A Pictorial Guide," by Frederick Fried and Edmund V. Gillon Jr., was published in 1976.
- The "AIA Guide to New York City" is not strictly about sculpture, but its comprehensive review of architecture in the city is sprinkled with enough gems about sculptors and architects (and statues) to make it worth your while.
