Infinite Variety: Jean Arp's Harvard Relief

In 1949, Bauhaus founder and Harvard architecture chair Walter Gropius commissioned Jean Arp and five other artists to design site-specific works for his most ambitious American project to date: the Harvard Graduate Center. Arp was a natural choice for the commission. He had recently co-authored a questionnaire on the integration of art and architecture for CIAM conferences in 1947 and 1949 with Sigfried Giedion, who recommended him to Gropius. Arp’s Harvard relief, Constellations, comprised large abstract shapes made from redwood that were installed on facing walls in a dining room. Each wooden shape attached directly to the wall, allowing, Arp claimed, an infinite number of new configurations. The relief’s transformative potential was tested when damage forced Arp to reinstall it in 1958. Renamed Constellations II, it remained in-situ for almost fifty years until its owner, Harvard Law School, permanently removed it during a building renovation. In 2017, Harvard Art Museums began an ambitious restoration of Arp’s relief culminating in its exhibition. This paper presents new archival and technical discoveries about Constellations II, considers the implications of re-siting it in a modern gallery, and reflects on the challenge of preserving site-specific art at universities.