WILMINGTON, DE.-The monumental sculpture, Crying Giant, will be installed in the nine-acre Sculpture Park at the newly expanded and renovated Delaware Art Museum. The 13-foot-high sculpture is the work of Tom Otterness, perhaps best known for his emblematic sculptures made of cast plaster or metal, which are often described as playful and whimsical social commentary.

Crying Giant is the first commissioned piece for the Museum’s new Sculpture Park, the first and only sculpture park in the Brandywine Valley. The Park also includes sculpture from the Museum’s permanent collection by Domenico Mortellito, Robert Stackhouse, Isaac Witkin, Lin Emery, John Van Alstine and Delaware sculptor Joe Moss. Another feature of the Sculpture Park is The Bancroft Reservoir (100 feet in diameter with 12-foot Brandywine granite walls), a unique outdoor venue for artistic programs, musical and theatrical events, or quiet reflection.

Considered one of America’s premier public artists, Tom Otterness exhibits extensively in the United States and abroad. His most recent exhibition, Tom Otterness on Broadway, featured 25 pieces displayed outdoors from 60th to 168th streets. The Museum’s Crying Giant was located at 117th and Broadway as part of the exhibition. The exhibition was so successful, the city extended it for four months in response to popular demand.

In addition to Broadway, Otterness recently completed a commission for Public Art Puerto Rico, El Coqui Gigante de Las Cavernas del Rio Camuy, in Camuy, Puerto Rico, and will show his work at Marlborough Gallery in New York in the fall of 2005. His work is in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and The Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, among others. Public commissions include installations at the United States courthouses in Minneapolis and Sacramento, in Battery Park City, and at the 14th Street A/C/E/L subway station in New York City. He recently completed an extensive public commission for Museum Beelden aan Zee in The Netherlands. Educated at the Art Students League and through the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum, Otterness has been a New York resident since the 1970s and works from a studio in DUMBO, Brooklyn.