Gallery • 14 Photos

Garima Thapa

Chaim Gross's Happy Mother, originally a lithograph, is a part of the Ulrich Museum of Art collection at Wichita State University. In the late 1970s, Gross grew more concerned about the theme of motherhood in their artwork.

Wichita State University boasts one of the largest American University Outdoor Sculpture collections with a continuous expansion of new additions almost every semester. What began as the inaugural Ulrich Museum director Martin H. Bush’s mission to bring artistic sensibilities from around the world to the Midwest is now an 88-sculpture collection scattered across campus.

“There are 88 opportunities to walk around campus and stop and learn something new and have art engagement, which is what our mission is here,” Jo Reinert, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Ulrich Museum, said. 

The collection was established in 1972,  with the bronze sculpture “Happy Mother” by Chaim Gross as its first piece. The collection continued amassing world-class modern and contemporary works from a diverse array of artists, notably Fernando Botero, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. 

It is owned by the WSU Foundation, and is conserved and expanded largely through private funding and support from institutions such as the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Endowment for the Arts. 

“Why do we grow our collection in general? To further the mission that is the museum’s, which is to expand art engagement with the art of our time, and to expand on the interpretation of the human experience,” Reinert said. 

In April 2024, the most recent 87th and 88th pieces, two Spirit Totems, “Sun” and “Moon,” were added consecutively at the Duerksen Amphitheater by New Mexico-based Indigenous artist Doug Coffin.

Maintained by the Ulrich Museum, the collection engages students, faculty, and visitors on campus with renowned works from the art community through a casual and accessible medium, free and open to the public. 

“Public art, in general, has demonstrable benefits, and that’s murals, sculptures, all of it, benefits to mental health, to feelings of belonging,” Reinert said. “I think on a university campus that’s especially important for so many people coming together.” 

“Millipede” or “Millie”, built by Wichitan Tom Otterness, was unveiled on the campus in 2008.

“It’s so playful, it’s so fun, and that artist wants the interaction, wants people to climb on it. In the early iterations of the different sketches and drafts that he was creating before making the Millipede, there were, you know, iterations of insects that were also slides, you know, that had these really very clear playground-like interactive components to them,” she said. “So, he was really thinking about how people were going to engage with the piece… I mean, you can’t look at that piece and, you know, not smile.”