Creative Time’s second installment of Art on the Plaza—a series of commissioned outdoor sculpture for The Ritz-Carlton in Battery Park City—featured British artist Gary Hume’s Back of a Snowman. Creative Time’s presentation of the sculpture marked the first U.S. installment of Hume’s delightful snowmen series.

Standing ten feet tall, Back of a Snowman bridged the fall, winter, and spring seasons, reminding the New York public of the distant between the natural environment and the urban context. The sculpture’s bronze heft, moreover, defied the ephemeral nature of its implied medium.

Photograph by Charlie Samuels

Gary Hume

Art on the Plaza 2: Back of a Snowman

Manhattan

2002