A new sculpture, donated by Torsten N. Wiesel, is perched in front of Flexner Hall
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“The idea was to put the bird in an area where it may have liked to sit, had it been a live bird,” says Torsten N. Wiesel about his recent gift to the university, a two-and-a-half-foot-tall cast-iron parrot. In this spirit, the sculpture has been placed in a grove of trees outside the southern entrance of Flexner Hall.
“It sets a tone that reflects my own way of looking at things: straight-up, clear, without unnecessary undulations,” says Wiesel, the Vincent and Brooke Astor Professor Emeritus and President Emeritus. A neurobiologist and Nobel laureate, Wiesel has been a steadfast presence on campus ever since he joined the faculty in 1983. He served as the university’s president from 1991 to 1998.
The sculpture’s precise origins are unknown: It is technically considered an architectural ornament from the late 19th or early 20th century, and was given to Wiesel by his former wife, the late Jean Stein. “She was a very generous person,” he says, “and I think the bird belongs here at Rockefeller. It makes me very happy to see members of the community pause to look at it as they go on their way.”
