Sylvette at N.Y.U.

Chicago may have the first monumental Picasso statue in the Western Hemisphere, but New York City will get the second--and New York will have the additional satisfaction of knowing whom its statue is meant to represent. Manhattan's New York University announced last week that a 60-ton, 36-ft-high Picasso will be erected in its Washington Square Center apartment complex, designed by I. M. Pei & Partners. The model for it is a 1954 painted metal cutout bust currently on display at Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art as part of its Picasso sculpture show (TIME, Oct. 20), for which Picasso used a pony-tailed girl named Sylvette David. The N.Y.U. version will be cast in black Norwegian basalt aggregate with a "skin" of buff-colored cement by Norway's Carl Nesjar. Nesjar will etch the skin of the sculpture by sandblasting, to reveal the basalt underneath in lines that will duplicate Picasso's brushstrokes. When completed, Sylvette will be half as high and twice as sexy as the Great Sphinx of Egypt.

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