Mark Erdman, ICA objects conservator, examines the Reader’s Column with Bernice Davis. (Photographs by Intermuseum Conservation Association.)

“Reader’s Column” has welcomed visitors to the Fulton Branch for twenty-five years. The outdoor sculpture by Cleveland artist David E. Davis (1920-2002) is formed by a stainless steel base supporting a construction of painted red, black and white aluminum geometric forms at the top. Bernice Davis, wife of the late sculptor, explained that this work belongs to the artist’s Harmonic Grid series. From the early 1970s to1980s, Davis’ sculptures utilized a set of 52 different shapes derived from the rectangle form. Davis believed that self-imposed restrictions help an artist to stretch the creative imagination . He drew on this personal vocabulary of shapes like a language, pulling out elements for his sculpture designs. After 1983 his works include organic shapes along with the harmonic grid elements.