TAAMPA, FLA.- The Tampa Museum of Art announced its plan to acquire Laura with Bun, a monumental sculpture by contemporary Spanish artist Jaume Plensa (b. 1955). The announcement was made prior to a public lecture by the artist at the Museum last night.

Completed in 2014, Laura with Bun is a monumental cast-iron sculpture based on an individual portrait. Like other important portrait-based sculptures by Jaume Plensa, Laura with Bun invites viewers to consider multiple aspects of beauty, individuality, and human nature. At 23 feet tall and more than 18,000 pounds, this artwork expresses both individual and universal traits on a grand and soaring scale.

On view in the Museum’s current exhibition of the artist’s work Jaume Plensa: Human Landscape, Laura with Bun is located on the northwest corner of the Museum’s footprint, adjacent to the Poe Parking Garage, providing the City of Tampa and its citizens free public access to excellence in art.

Museum Trustees, Patrons, Members, and the community, together with lead gifts from an anonymous donor, Celia and Jim Ferman, Penny and Jeff Vinik, and the Williams Family, have generously contributed to help raise a portion of funds needed to purchase the sculpture. Fundraising efforts will continue.

“With this commitment, the Museum leadership and staff have declared their obligation to continue building an iconic permanent collection for the institution and the community. With this monumental work in particular, this public art piece will create a perceptual change in the profile of the Museum and the City as it will symbolize strength and viability of the arts in the community and at the Tampa Museum of Art. Laura with Bun is already a landmark of an exhibition’s success. In the near future, it will become a marker of this great Museum. I am very appreciative of the support shown for this commitment to the Museum, its community education and exhibition program initiatives, and to the citizens of the entire Tampa Bay region,” said Museum director Michael Tomor.

Plensa was born in 1955 in Barcelona, Spain, where he continues to have a residence and a studio. He has exhibited his work in museums and at outdoor sites around the world. His many awards include the Medaille de Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, from the French Ministry of Culture (1993); the Government of Catalonia’s National Prize for Fine Art (1997); the National Prize for Fine Arts in Spain (2012); and the Velázquez Plastic Arts Prize (2013). Plensa is represented by Galerie Lelong (New York and Paris) and the Richard Gray Gallery (Chicago).

The most comprehensive exhibition of this internationally acclaimed artist’s work in North America to date, Jaume Plensa: Human Landscape was jointly organized by Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art and the Frist Center for the Visual Arts.

Jaume Plensa is the subject of the most recent Brilliant Ideas, a video series produced by Bloomberg News that examines "the most exciting and acclaimed artists at work in the world today."