Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park / Illinois Landscape No. 5

Illinois Landscape No. 5 – by John Henry

1976 / 134 feet long / welded and painted steel

Location: Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park

Commissioned by the Governors State University Foundation with assistance from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Illinois Landscape No. 5 – by John Henry / Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park

This sculpture, which measures 134 feet in length, is typical of John Henry’s work. Through the careful arrangement of simple forms and with great attention to angles of incidence and visual weight, the artist has created a structure which seems, from a distance, to dance effortlessly across the landscape. But it is also an interactive work, so large the viewer can enter it, move easily between its monumental components observing the play of light and shade – experiencing the work from both the inside and out.

The sculptor John Henry was born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1943. He gained an appreciation of construction materials and techniques from his father, who was a construction engineer. Henry attended the School of Art Institute of Chicago [SAIC] earning a BFA.

In the late 1960s John Henry organized “ConStruct,” a group of young sculptors who championed the idea of placing large scale sculptures in public places. Other founding members include Mark di Suvero, Kenneth Snelson, Lyman Kipp, and Charles Ginnever.

In 1968, he organized “Eight American Sculptors,” an early group of exhibition of large scale abstract sculptures which invaded the Pioneer Court. It included the work of five Chicago sculptors [John Henry, Richard Hunt, Jerald Jacard, Edwin Strautmantis and Stephen Urry], two sculptors from New York [Mark di Suvero and Michael Steiner] and one sculptor from Detroit [Michael Hall].

Illinois Landscape No. 5 made its debut on the GSU campus in 1976, when William Engbretron the outgoing president spearheaded the groundbreaking exhibition “The Sculptor, the Campus and the Prairie,” bringing work of seven sculptors to the University Park. Many of these have over time become part of the collection of Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park.