The Institute’s Aspen Meadows Campus is one of the nation’s best examples of Bauhaus architecture, because it is a rich showcase of the work of the visionary designer Herbert Bayer. Now, thanks to Melony and Adam Lewis, the Institute has acquired and installed Anaconda, a 1978 Bayer sculpture. “We are thrilled that key supporters in the Aspen community are embracing the Aspen Meadows campus as a museum for the works of Herbert Bayer,” Lynda Resnick, an Institute trustee and the chair of the Art Advisory Committee, noted. “The Institute is to be commended for its dedication to preserving Herbert Bayer’s art legacy.”
Anaconda was first installed in the foyer of the Atlantic Richfield Company’s headquarters in Denver, Colorado, in 1978. ARCO, an oil company, was founded by Robert O. Anderson, who served as the second president of the Institute from 1957 to 1963. The Institute acquired the sculpture from the Denver Art Museum in 2017, where it had remained in crates since its removal from the ARCO lobby in 1995. In its new home on the Aspen Meadows Campus, Anaconda is outdoors, with the mountains as a backdrop and in alignment with the Walter Paepcke Memorial Building. The site was selected with the advice of Bernard Jazzar, the curator of the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Collection; Jeff Berkus, the founder of Jeffrey Berkus Architects; and Richard Shaw, a landscape architect with Design Workshop. “We are delighted to install this sculpture as we gear up for next year’s celebration of the 100th-year anniversary of the founding of the Bauhaus School,” Institute CEO Dan Porterfield said.
Melony and Adam Lewis, philanthropists and members of the Institute’s Society of Fellows, dedicated the gift to Adam’s mother, Toby Devan Lewis, an art curator, collector, author, and philanthropist who has been involved with the Institute for decades.