HENRY AND JOAN LEE SCULPTURE ENDOWMENT

The Friends of the Public Garden plays a vital role in caring for 42 sculptures, tablets, plaques and fountains, in the Boston Common, Public Garden, and Commonwealth Avenue Mall. The Friends spends an average of $100,000 each year for regular cleaning as well as conservation and restoration when needed. The best professionals are hired to do this work. The Friends also responds to graffiti damage, making repairs immediately. This regular maintenance saves tens of thousands of dollars in the long run; if a piece is allowed to deteriorate, its full restoration is very costly. The Friends sculpture care program ensures this significant collection is maintained in excellent condition.

In 2010, to honor founding President, and now President Emeritus, Henry Lee as part of the Friends 40th Anniversary celebrations, the Henry Lee Conservation Fund was established as a spending fund for sculpture care.

Given the cost of maintaining the collection in the best possible condition, this fund will be spent down within the foreseeable future. Therefore, the Friends Board of Directors decided there was a need to provide an endowment sufficient to support the long-term care of the parks’ sculpture.

In 2016, the Friends established the Henry and Joan Lee Sculpture Endowment in honor of the Lees’ legacy of commitment to the parks and their sculpture. The fund’s mission is to provide for the ongoing care of the public art in the Common, Garden and Mall, the largest concentration of public art in the city.

For questions or more information, please contact Perry Skaggs, Development Associate, at 617-723-8144 or perry@friendsofthepublicgarden.org. Contributions can be sent via mail to the Friends of the Public Garden, 69 Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02108 or can be made online.

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PUBLIC ART IN THE BOSTON COMMON, THE PUBLIC GARDEN, AND THE COMMONWEALTH AVENUE MALL

The Henry and Joan Lee Sculpture Endowment will provide funds to care for the pieces of public art listed below, with the exception of the September 11th Memorial and the Vendome Fireman’s Memorial which are cared for by private groups.

  • Boston Common Tablet/Blackstone Memorial Tablet
  • Boston Massacre Memorial
  • Brewer Fountain
  • Commodore John Barry Tablet
  • Declaration of Independence Tablet
  • Edward Filene Tablet
  • Founders Memorial
  • Fox Hill Marker
  • Marquis de Lafayette
  • Oneida Football Tablet
  • Papal Mass Tablet
  • Parkman Plaza statues (3 figures in front of Visitors Center)
  • Royal Navy Plaque
  • Shaw and 54th Regiment Memorial
  • Soldiers and Sailors Monument
  • Bagheera Fountain
  • Boy and Bird Fountain
  • Ether Fountain
  • George Robert White Memorial (MFA cares for the bronze pieces)
  • Small Child Fountain
  • Triton Babies Fountain
  • Charles Sumner Statue
  • Edward Everett Hale Statue
  • Flag Pole Base/Goody Memorial
  • George Washington Memorial
  • Japanese Lantern
  • Make Way for Ducklings (9 pieces)
  • Tadeusz Kosciuszko Statue
  • Thomas Cass Statue
  • Wendell Phillips Statue
  • William Ellery Channing Statue
  • September 11th Memorial (cared for by a private group)
  • Alexander Hamilton Statue
  • General John Glover Statue
  • Patrick Andrew Collins Statue
  • Vendome Fireman’s Memorial (cared for by a private group)
  • William Lloyd Garrison Statue
  • Samuel Eliot Morison Statue
  • Boston Women’s Memorial
  • Domingo Faustino Sarmiento Statue
  • Leif Eriksson Statue
  • Lombard Lamp