Natural Wonder

Grounds for Sculpture

Posted December 19, 2007 by Jennifer Melick

When a chunk of the New Jersey State Fairgrounds in Hamilton went up for sale in the 1980s, we were lucky that instead of a developer building tract housing or strip malls, J&J heir J. Seward Johnson stepped in. A sculptor himself, Johnson helped create this 35-acre public sculpture garden, which this year celebrates fifteen years since its inaugural exhibition in 1992. Here, in an arboretum-like setting, you can see bronze creations such as George Segal’s Depression Bread Line, Red Grooms’s humorous Henry Moore in a Sheep Meadow, and Johnson’s own Summer Thinking—his life-size sculpture of a woman lying in the grass reading.

There is now a street sign in Roth’s name on the corner of Summit and Keer avenues in Newark, where he lived for much of his childhood.

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