Existing comment:
Andrew Leicester
Ghost Series, 1994
Intimations of the past emerge through five towering bas-relief terra-cotta murals scattered in the corridors of the Long Island Rail Road's Penn Station. Thorough scale and style that invoke the station's illustrious history, the works create the sense that the original Beaux-Arts station, which was destroyed in 1963, still inhabits these surroundings. A porcelain enamel mural of the elevation of the original blueprints by architects McKim, Mead & White reinforces the spectral allusion. According to Andrew Leicester, each terra-cotta element of Ghost Series is a replication of an architectural detail of the old Pennsylvania Station. The work pays homage to the "gorgeous building" that bespoke "the great age of steam locomotion, coinciding with the golden age of industrial prosperity and optimism for the future of America."
Born in England, Andrew Leicester moved to the United States 23 years ago and now resides in Minneapolis. He works exclusively on environmental public art projects, for which he has won numerous awards. Leicester's other public art commissions can be seen in Los Angeles, Cincinnati, and Philadelphia. |