Orange sculpture in Speer Boulevard median

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DENVER — An untitled geometric sculpture from 1975 has been restored and returned to Speer Boulevard, Denver Arts and Venues said Tuesday.

The sculpture was created by Gerald Cross. It consists of orange painted steel and blue plexiglass.

The city said the sculpture was originally sponsored by The Park People and endorsed by Mayor William McNichols as part of the “Art in the City” initiative. The program’s goal was to enhance the aesthetics of downtown Denver’s traffic islands through art.

The sculpture was previously located at the intersection of Speer Boulevard and Colfax Avenue. The city said it was recently "rejuvenated and restored," and has been relocated to the Speer median between Larimer and Market streets. The reinstallation was completed Saturday, the city said.

“Now this giant, perfectly ordered, tidy geometric expression will be surrounded by the imperfect messy real-life truth we live of traffic, pedestrians, bicyclists, traffic lights, trees, grass and sunshine,” Cross’s daughter Catherine Bauers said in a news release. “To my father, patterns of math imbued every one of these things.”

“We’ve been so excited to see the progress made on our dad’s sculpture,” daughter Eliza Cross said in the release. “He would be so pleased with the restoration and the care with which Denver Public Art has approached every aspect of this project.”

"The iconic sculpture is characteristic of Cross’s style, combining mathematics and art, meticulous and linear yet playful," the city said in the release. "His two- and three-dimensional work was known for fusion of the rigorous, angular and ordered aspects of geometry with the whimsy and imagination of bright colors and design. Its new location in the Speer median will draw fresh attention to this historic Denver piece as it will be visible by both north and southbound travelers."

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