Artist David Hayes’ sculpture, ‘Rooster,’ was recently installed at the Nassau County Museum of Art’s Sculpture Garden in Roslyn Harbor.
Hayes’ son, David, selected this work of steel and primary colors to catch the eye of every visitor to the Museum, located on the Frick family’s former estate.
“My father mounted a significant 19-piece outdoor exhibition half a century ago at the inaugural season of the then Nassau County Museum – NCMA’s predecessor – on the Sands Point Preserve’s grounds,” Hayes said. “The show included many of my father’s larger early works, which informed my selection of ‘Rooster,’ a
1972 piece from the same era.”
Hayes enjoyed a sixty-year career making sculptures in Paris and Coventry, Connecticut. Since 1955, the work has been featured in 500 exhibitions and shown at galleries like the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum.
He learned from teacher David Smith and mentor Alexander Calder early in life. Since his death, Hayes’ estate has maintained a robust museum exhibition schedule across the country; his sculpture fields are open to the public year-round. In 2024, the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies recognized the work at the White House.
The Nassau County Museum of Art presents three significant exhibitions and welcomes 50,000 visitors annually. On view now in the Saltzman Fine Art Building, the estate’s Gilded Age mansion, built in 1900, is Deco at 100, a celebration of the Art Deco movement. The show coincides with the centennial anniversary of the 1925 Paris International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, which launched the movement internationally.
Art Deco, which lasted from 1910 to 1950, is the stylistic movement that bridges the Gilded Age and the contemporary era. It prompts a fresh look at prior styles and energizes them with a broader embrace of diverse human cultures. Deco at 100 is made possible by a grant from the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation of New York.
The museum is open Tuesdays through Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Admission is $15 for adults, $10 for seniors aged 65 and above, and $5 for children aged four to 12. For more information, visit www.nassaumuseum.org.
Information provided by the Nassau County Museum of Art.
