New Art in the Library Brochure

Tympanum is not a word one hears often, but if you’ve ever visited the Central Library there’s a good chance you’ve admired one! The tympanum over the Old Main Entrance on Anapamu Street is the Central Library’s oldest art piece. It was designed by Carleton M. Winslow and executed by Marshall Laird in 1924, seven years after the library opened in 1917. Both the tympanum and Sunburst Over California Poppies (1930) were restored during the Michael Towbes Plaza Renovation in 2024.

Inspired by the Plaza and Faulkner Memorial Art Gallery renovations, library staff have re-imagined the Art in the Library brochure. The original, dating back to the 1970s/80s, was once an often-used reference resource for patrons interested in learning about the art hanging in the library. The librarians handed them out to anyone who wanted one. The last copy of the original Art in the Library brochure has been living in the Library’s Locked Case for the last few decades.

Printed on glossy paper with beautiful color reproductions, the updated Art in the Library brochure provides an overview of each piece, updated research, a stunning hand-colored reproduction of a 1930s postcard of the Faulkner Gallery, and a map of the building indicating the location of each work of art. A quote by Nancy Gifford, the artist who created Lament (2014), captures the interplay between art and libraries: "The visual arts and the literary arts are reinventing their relationship to one another, and libraries are redefining their future."