Was this midcentury masterpiece a cosmic triumph or just glorified costume jewelry?
In short: Richard Lippold’s sculpture The Sun was a radiant, gossamer gold wire installation that once dominated the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While some saw it as an elegant, existential ode to the cosmos, others dismissed the intricate work as mere costume jewelry. A 1966 documentary captures its polarizing legacy.
Created between 1953 and 1956, Variation within a Sphere, Number 10: The Sun was a commissioned kinetic sculpture that hung above the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Persian carpets. The work, composed of delicate gold wire, served as a potent symbol of midcentury Existentialism. Its presence in the museum was divisive from the start; critics and viewers were split between those who perceived it as a profound cosmic representation and those who derisively labeled it an exploded piece of costume jewelry.
In 1966, director Leo Hurwitz released a documentary titled The Sun and Richard Lippold to explore the sculpture’s aesthetic impact. The film, which features cinematography by Manfred Kirchheimer, runs approximately 30 minutes. Rather than a traditional biography, the documentary functions as a visual essay. It juxtaposes the sculpture with various geometric patterns and natural forms, including spider webs, sunflowers, coal dumpers, and the structure of the Brooklyn Bridge, to trace the artistic connections between industrial design and spiritual delight.
The documentary remains a significant artifact within the museum's broader moving-image archive, which contains over 1,500 films collected since the 1920s. While Lippold is perhaps better known for his five-ton chandelier Orpheus and Apollo—which hung in the New York Philharmonic lobby for over fifty years before being dismantled in 2014—The Sun remains a focal point for discussions on midcentury abstraction. The film itself, a black-and-white production featuring classical organ music, provides a rare, hypnotic glimpse into a work that once held a prominent place above the museum's grand staircase.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: The Sun and Richard Lippold, 1966 | From the Vaults
- Also: The Sun and Richard Lippold, 1966, from the Richard Lippold papers, 1940s-1977 | Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution | Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
- Also: The Sun and Richard Lippold. 1966. Directed by Leo Hurwitz Discovery in a Painting. 1968/2014. Directed by Leo Hurwitz | MoMA
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