SculptureNow at The Mount

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During my trip to the Berkshires in July 2023, I visited The Mount in Lenox, MA to see the SculptureNow art installation. Originally the home of American author and designer Edith Wharton, The Mount is currently a historic house museum with vast grounds, including gardens and walking trails. The annual SculptureNow event allows artists to display their work in an open air environment.

Sign for The Mount, Edith Wharton's House; a large sign with a photograph of The Mount and directions to admissions, standard parking, walking trails, and accessible parking

About The Mount

Edith Wharton previously appeared on this blog during my post on Beauport, the Sleeper-McCann House, which is now owned by Historic New England (HNE). She was friends with interior designer Henry Davis Sleeper, who originally built that property as his dream home. Other members of the writer-artist social circle included Ogden Codman, Jr. of HNE’s Codman Estate, Sarah Orne Jewett of HNE’s Sarah Orne Jewett House Museum & Visitor Center, Isabella Stewart Gardner who built a self-titled museum in Boston, and many others in the New England elite at the beginning of the 20th century. Wharton designed and built the property in 1902, five years after the debut of her book The Decoration of Houses in 1897, which she co-authored with Codman, Jr. She and her husband sold the property by 1911 and never visited it again. Wharton is most well known for what she did after leaving The Mount. She became the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1921, doing so with her novel The Age of Innocence.

The Mount seen between a double row of hedges at the top of the stairs leading from the back garden. Horse Stables at The Mount; a two-story building with three sections denoted by square, shuttered windows on either side of an entrance large enough for a carriage to pull through Caretaker's House at the Mount; a two-story, cream colored, Federalist style house with a one-story attachment on the back set on a wide long with a variety of trees.
Back of the Stables at The Mount; rectangular two-story building with seven sets of windows on the back and three sets of windows on the side. The Mount Viewed from the Memorial Garden; The two-story whitewashed building stands at the top of a grassy hill on the left. To the right, a flight of stairs leads down into a manicured garden. The Mount Viewed from the Fountain Garden; the building stands beyond a row of tall hedges and a short garden.

The property includes horse stables, a caretaker's house, several gardens, and a creepy pet cemetery. Francis L.V. Hoppin, an architect from Providence, RI, designed the exterior of the mansion and the matching stables. While Hoppin designed many homes throughout the northeast, the only other I have visited was his renovation of the Springwood Estate at Home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt National Historic Site. As for the gardens, those were a collaboration between Wharton and her niece, newly budding landscape designer Beatrix Jones Farrand.

The Mount viewed from the side; the sloped hill leading up to the house is planted with a variety of bushes Gravestones in the Pet Cemetery at The Mount Sign for the Pet Cemetery at The Mount
Rectangular Fountain at The Mount; the fountain is in a rectangular pool surrounded by pink flowers. Another view of the Rectangular Fountain at The Mount Round Fountain in the sunken Italian Garden at The Mount; the fountain is surrounded by a gravel path, which is bordered by ornamental ferns.

SculptureNow

SculptureNow was founded twenty-five years ago in 1998 and has collaborated with The Mount since 2013. Sculptors from around New England contribute their work to the sale with pieces ranging in price from $3,600 to $150,000. The show ran from June 1 through October 31. My favorite sculpture was I Have Been Dreaming to Be a Tree by South Korean artist Byeongdoo Moon. This stainless steel deer with long tree branches for antlers stood in the middle of a lawn with a bird perched on its back.

Want to learn more about the sculptures using the images below? Users on desktop can hover over the images to view the title and artist for each sculpture. Users on mobile can press and hold the image to bring up the title.

Gourd II/Homage to Van Gogh by John Ruppert; a steel nest-like giant basket covered in lime green vinyl Material Energy by Peter Barrett; a rusty zigzagging chunk of metal sticking Magician by Madeleine Lord; metal silhouette of a male magician sending his female assistant through a hoop
Static Vestige by Benjamin Jose; a blue 1968 Plymouth Valiant 100 topped with a sign holding a graphic overlay Everest by Harold Grinspoon; stacks of large green glass balls forming two pyramids and a wall Two in One by Antoinette Schultze; a granite, glass, and steel block with a split in the middle Vine of Life by Louis Roux; a small Parthenon-like birdhouse on top of a wooden pole
I Have Been Dreaming to Be a Tree by Byeongdoo Moon; a stainless steel deer with long tree branches for antlers Twizzle by David Skora; a yellow circle pierced by a giant red twizzler with I Have Been Dreaming... in the background Time on His Hands by Ricky Bernstein; a retired man sleeps on the couch amid bowling balls and golf clubs
Eleventh Unconformity (January) by Lydia Jenkins Musco; a skinny short wall made of concrete and spots of color Gruntled Inflection by Justin Kenney; a red stone stuck into a gray stone Unbridled by Deborah H. Carter; an off-white wedding dress made of tapioca root wood flowers and mesh One Leaning on Another by Joy Brown; a large brown metal parent sitting on the ground with a brown metal child climbing on their back
Balthazar III by Wendy Klemperer; a metal turkey at life size Sanctum Sanctorum by Ann Jon; rusty orange ruins of a tower and wall Celebration by Douglass Rice; black steel semi-circles connected together
Old Growth by Bobby Sweet; the head of a violin carved from a tree stump Windwave Arbor by Blaze Konefal; a black metal box covered in chicken wire fencing pierced with shine square pieces of metal reflecting sunlight I'm Here, Still Here by Sarah Alexander; an abstract metal bird in a bird cage One See One Find by Tomer Ben-Gal; two large wooden spools propped together by wooden stops
Old Warrior by Robin Tost; a life sized metal tortoise No Longer and Not Yet by Gary Orlinsky; wooden picture frames on top of long wooden poles Sanctuary by Stephen Procter; three tall ceramic stumps and three matching stools surrounding a matching urn.
Location: 2 Plunkett St, Lenox, MA 01240, USA