Guarding La Gioconda – Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton Township, Trenton, New Jersey

Grounds For Sculpture is a 42-acre sculpture park and museum located on the former site of the New Jersey State Fairgrounds in Hamilton Township. The grounds, which feature over 270 large scale contemporary sculptures, were founded in 1992 by John Seward Johnson II – known to all as "Seward." He desired to make contemporary sculpture accessible to people from all backgrounds.

Seward is a wealthy heir to the immense medical products fortune of Johnson & Johnson, founded by his grandfather. Seward not only produces art, but also generously supports cultural projects. Both his sculpture and his philanthropy were overshadowed for a time in the 1980’s, however, when he was entangled in one of the most notorious legal inheritance battles in America: Mr. Johnson and his five siblings challenged the will of J. Seward Johnson Sr., their father who had disinherited them. Their lawsuit was successful.

Seward has been making sculptures since the early 1970’s. Some of his work copies the iconic works of fine artists with international reputations – especially the work of the 19th century Impressionists. These sculptures invite the viewer to enter the frame of well-known paintings by bringing the details of characters and scenes off the canvas and into our three dimensional world. The life-scale figures are rendered explicitly true to the paintings since Johnson has painted the bronze faces just as an oil painter creates skin tones in a portrait; assiduously and instinctively blending layers of unrelated colors which come together to create shadow, volume and form. The statues are arranged in a montage that enables literally to enter the frame – to experience the illusion of reality, to step directly into a world that he or she has only seen but not experienced with his or her full senses.

Some critics dismiss Seward’s work as kitsch. I, for one, think his work to be great fun. I was fortunate enough to visit the Grounds for Sculpture in time to see an show of over 150 of Seward’s works depicting his 50-year career. The retrospective exhibition was scheduled to run from May 4 to September 21, 2014 but due to overwhelming popularity, it was extended through July 2015.

A Reason to Smile, a life-scale bronze and aluminum sculptural tableau, was cast by Seward Johnson in 2004. Johnson chose to transform the experience, in total, of viewing Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. By creating a backdrop, a front wall, two French guards and a frame, he plays with the elements of the third dimension, allowing visitors to enter the picture frame and pose, side by side with the subject of the painting.