The Smithsonian Institution’s Hirshhorn Museum on National Mall is dedicated to contemporary art. To the north of it is the sculpture garden, where the best sculptures from the museum’s collection are on display.
The museum is named after the man who created it. The twelfth (of thirteen) child in the family, Joseph Hirschhorn was born in Latvian Mitava in 1899. He emigrated with his widowed mother to America when he was six years old. He began his incredible career at age fourteen on Wall Street as a delivery boy. Three years later he became a stockbroker and made $168,000 in his first year. Hirshhorn had an uncanny knack for it: two months before the 1929 stock crash, he sold all his stocks for $4 million. The entrepreneur made his fortune on minerals, oil, and gold. In the thirties, Hirshhorn made another visionary move: he focused on Canadian uranium. Thirty years later he sold uranium assets that had skyrocketed in value for fabulous money.
Joseph Hearhorn was a controversial figure. He was twice deported from Canada for securities fraud. At the same time, having become rich, the businessman began to collect works of art. He did it himself, making decisions quickly: “If you have to look at a picture a dozen times before you buy it, then there’s something wrong with you or the picture.
In 1966, Hirshhorn bequeathed most of his collection to the Smithsonian Institution. He also donated funds for the construction of the museum building. Construction began in 1969 and was completed five years later. Architect Gordon Bunshaft designed the cylindrical structure, known in Washington as the “bunker” or “gas tank.”
The main collection of paintings and sculptures is housed on the second and third floors of the museum – there are works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Henry Moore, Franz Kline, Salvador Dali, Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein and many other artists. The sculpture garden exhibits works by Auguste Rodin, Emile Antoine Bourdelle, David Smith, Alexander Calder, and Jeff Koons.
Perhaps the garden’s most eye-catching exhibit is Auguste Rodin’s famous sculptural group Citizens of Calais. It is dedicated to a heroic episode of the Hundred Years’ War. English King Edward III for a year besieged the city of Calais, hunger forced the defenders to surrender. The king promised to spare the inhabitants if six noble citizens would come out in trenchcoats and with ropes around their necks to accept execution for all. The first to volunteer to die was the richest man in Calais, Eustache de Saint-Pierre. When the six volunteers came out to meet the king, Edward’s pregnant wife begged her husband to spare the heroes for the sake of their unborn child. The original sculptural group is in Calais itself, with a cast on display at the Hirschhorn Museum.
The second most famous exhibit is the “wish tree,” an installation by John Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono. The idea is based on the Japanese tradition of tying notes with prayers to the branches. Visitors hang leaves with their wishes on the tree.