Three Piece Vertebrae by Henry Moore 1968. This sculpture is currently owned by the Seattle Art Museum. In 1971 it was purchased by SeaFirst Bank for $165,000 and installed in front of 1001 4th Avenue, the building formerly known as the Seafirst Building. The bank sold it later and then purchased it back for $2,000,000. It's worth way more than that now, and it's on the top-ten list of public art works in town. Here's a very similar Moore sculpture in Israel.
Today you'll see packs of UW Art History students gathered around it, scribbling in notebooks. Or packs of junior high students climbing all over it like a jungle gym, riding it like a horse, while their teacher looks for a good spot for 34 kids to eat lunch on their field trip. Or clusters of tourists circling it repeatedly looking for the name of the artist. A local seagull hangs out in the water beneath it. And a local woman who dances to her own-some might say crazy drum beats- has been known to remove her shoes and dance in the water as well. That was a day I did not have my camera but it was a great scene. Building security eventually comes out and asks people to get off the thing, the art work, the icon, the sculpture, one of the most expensive jungle gyms in North America.
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