The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston has installed a recently acquired bronze sculpture by the renowned Italian artist Giuseppe Penone. “Albero Folgorato (Lightning Tree)” (2012), which stands over 36 feet tall, was cast from an oak tree that had been struck by lightning. It will reside on the museum’s verdant South Lawn in the Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden. Created by sculptor Isamu Noguchi, the sculpture garden features masterworks of 20th- and 21st-century sculpture by artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Dan Graham, Henri Matisse, and Auguste Rodin. The garden also includes a variety of plants and trees that were selected by Noguchi with assistance from the Houston-based landscape architect Johnny Steele.
Houston’s “Albero Folgorato” is the third and final version of the monumental bronze sculpture, which had its internationally acclaimed debut at the Palace of Versailles in France in the summer of 2013.
