Sheila Levrant de Bretteville

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Sheila Levrant de Bretteville
Biddy Mason: Time and Place
1991

Project Area: CBD/Historic Core
Project: Biddy Mason Park
Project Location: 331 S. Spring Street
Project Type: CRA Initiated

Description:

Located in the pleasant outdoor courtyard area mid-block between the Bradbury Building and 331 S. Spring St., Sheila Levrant De Bretteville's "Biddy Mason: Time and Place" is a long black concrete wall divided into segments. Each segment, representing a decade between the years 1810 and 1890 that mark the life span of Biddy Mason, contains a sentence in raised lettering that mark the significant events of its decade. Evocative of an intangible past, haunting imprints also appear on the wall, including wagon wheels, a fence, a medical bag, and shrubbery. Photographs and documents appear throughout the wall as well.

For other projects, please see:

Omoide No Shotokyo (Remembering Old Little Tokyo)

Artist Profile

Born in New York City, artist Sheila Levrant de Bretteville is recognized as the first graphic designer to pioneer a form of public art that engages local communities by weaving site-specific visual and verbal narratives permanently into the fabric of public places. Sheila Levrant de Bretteville attended Barnard College, Columbia University for her BA in History of Art and then continued her studies at Yale University for her MFA in Graphic Design. In 1971, as the only woman on the faculty of the School of Design at the California Institute of the Arts, the artist created the Women’s Design Program and co-founded the Woman’s Building in Los Angeles in 1973. In 1981, she initiated and chaired the Department of Communication Design at the Otis College of Art and Design. In 1990, Levrant de Bretteville was the first woman appointed full professorship at Yale University of Art where she continues to teach today.