2045 N Lincoln Park West
Chicago, IL 60614
East of N. Clark Street near entrance to Matthew Laflin Memorial Building on axis with W. Armitage Avenue
Description
In the mid 1990s, the Chicago Academy of Sciences moved out of the Matthew Laflin Memorial Building to become part of the new Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. The century-old Renaissance Revival style building was then converted into the administrative headquarters for the Lincoln Park Zoo.
To help make visitors aware of the building’s new function, the Lincoln Park Zoological Society purchased Siblings—a bronze figurative sculpture of two Mountain Lions reclining with their backs facing one another. The sculpture serves as an icon for the Lincoln Park Zoo in front of the building. The bronze figures sit on a low granite and limestone base.
Rosetta, a Colorado-based artist who specializes in sculptures of felines, produced the artwork. She explains that she portrayed the mountain lions as young adults, when the “the siblings still share a strong enough bond to keep them together, but soon must split up to form territories of their own, as all big cats except the Lions are solitary creatures.” Rosetta is a fellow of the National Sculpture Society and a member of the Society of Animal Artists and American Women Artists.