University of Wisdom in the Financial District

310 Battery Street
Financial District
Embarcadero

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This piece sits on the other side of the Old Federal Reserve Building from Dionysus and Hermes, also by Armand Arman.

The French-born American artist Arman told an interviewer in 1968. “I have never been — how do you say it? A dilettante.” Arman’s vast artistic output ranges from drawings and prints to monumental public sculpture. His work—strongly influenced by Dada, and in turn a strong influence on Pop Art—is in the collections of such institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Titled University of Wisdom this piece, done in 1989,  is part of the Embarcadero Center Art Collection. The collection was created by Embarcadero Center developer David Rockefeller and Embarcadero Center architect John C. Portman, Jr., who shared the vision of integrating fine architecture with fine art.