Bill Stewart (1941-2020)

Prototype #6 is a maquette for The Council, a commissioned installation for the Greater Rochester International Airport in Rochester, New York. Five masked or animal-headed figures and a bird sculpture stood up to 10 feet tall in a granite pool of water 16 feet in diameter. Each was primarily covered in a matte black glaze with some detailing in white or terra cotta. Stewart chose two Native American inscriptions to be engraved in the granite pool base: excerpts from an Eskimo hunting song and Chief Seattle’s treaty oration to Congress in 1854. (Unfortunately, The Council was removed in 2016.)