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Our Atomic Baby / Willard Stone

Gallery Label

Stone wrote a letter to Gilcrease curator in 1946 describing this sculpture. Look at the sculpture from bottom to top to understand his description.

“I have tried to picture, using the baby as a representative figure, the atomic infant and how he was born...Test bottle representing science. Immature babies boiling out of top and down side of bottle representing scientific failures in past experiments or near misses. The successful experiment, or atomic explosion, giving birth to Our Atomic Baby. The Atomic Baby himself. The world is now molding his character by giving him knives to play with."

From the exhibition: Willard Stone: Following the Grain, 2016.
Willard Stone, artist.

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Title(s): 
Our Atomic Baby
Culture: 
Native American; Cherokee descent
Date: 
1946
Materials/Techniques: 
cherry wood
Classification: 
Object Type: 
Accession No: 
11.74
Previous Number(s): 
1127.74; 20613
Department: 
Not On View

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