Paul Tucker, Director of Arts on the Point and Art professor at UMB, has obtained two bronze sculptures by the father of modern sculpture, Auguste Rodin. Each represent Jean de Fiennes, one of the six life-size figures from what is arguably Rodin’s most famous commission, “The Burghers of Calais,” of 1885-1886.

In one version, Jean de Fiennes is shown clothed, in the other, nude. While surprising, the two bear eloquent witness to Rodin’s working methods and to the way he conceived of his figure. Owned by a private collector in France, they will be coming to UMass Boston from Geneva where they have been in storage since being exhibited in France and Spain.

Also, Maya Lin, the celebrated creator of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, has agreed to design an earthwork for our campus. The sculpture will be a permanent addition to the campus and the only work of this kind by Lin in the northeast.

An earlier example of her work in this genre is a 1995 piece called “Wave Field,” which she created for the University of Michigan. It consists of a 100′ by 100′ tract of grassy land that she transformed from a flat surface into a series of 50 small, equally spaced mounds that make the site look like frozen sound waves, the undulations of a body of water, or the meticulously swept sands of a magical desert. Although it may be some time before she finalizes plans for the work, Lin has said that it will involve some equally subtle manipulation of the oval grassy area in front of the new Campus Center.