This is a sculpture that Pablo Picasso created for the city of Chicago. This statue has no name. It can be found in Chicago’s Daley Plaza.

The Chicago Picasso, an unpainted, three-dimensional, cubist sculpture standing 50 feet tall and weighing 162 tons, is made of Corrosive Tensile (“Cor-Ten”) steel, the same material used to build the Daley Center. Originally rust colored, the sculpture now has a darkish gray patina that nicely matches the one on the Daley Center building behind it.No doubt the most famous of Chicago’s many outdoor sculptures, the Chicago Picasso was unveiled in the Civic Center Plaza (as the Daley Plaza was then known), on August 15, 1967.

Greeted at first with much scorn and ridicule, the Chicago Picasso nonetheless marked the beginning of Chicago’s love affair with contemporary art, a love affair that would help turn downtown Chicago into a veritable open-air sculpture gallery, with some one hundred artworks spread all around the Loop for Chicagoans (and tourists) to enjoy.