Subtitle: Monuments To Collective Identity
Author: Meredith Arms Bzdak
Photographer: Douglas Petersen
Subject: New Jersey/Art
Paperback ISBN 0-8135-2700-7
Pages: 220 pp., 7x10, 84 duotones
Description: A visual and anrrative history of New Jersey's most significant works of public sculpture

Winner of N.J. Historical Preservation Award

New Jersey boasts more than 700 public sculptures. By surveying these works as a group, we learn who helped to shape New Jersey, what events we considered significant, and how we hope we will be remembered. Public Sculpture in New Jersey examines 150 years of past and current patterns in the commissioning and placement of outdoor art in the Garden State.

The book contains essays that profile 100 of the state's most significant works as well as the artists who created them, and features 84 magnificent photographs that document these works, capturing the effects of time and the environment on each sculpture. Bzdak and Petersen selected these works for the variety of stories they tell and for their range of artistic expression, from traditional to contemporary, rather than focusing only on the best known or most visible works of public sculpture. By telling the stories behind the sculptures, the book captures New Jersey's history, especially history that may not be well known but that conveys significant information about how our predecessors lived and the official images they sought to leave behind.

Meredith Arms Bzdak is currently the Architectural Historian for Ford Farewell Mills and Gatsch, Architects. Since 1990, Douglas Petersen has been documenting the American historical landscape. He is the photographer of The Last Light of Day.