I was visiting Princeton, NJ and walking around campus when I noticed this bas-relief sculpture of a young man reading a book. He’s got a preppy look, with his collared shirt tucked under a sweater, khaki pants and penny loafers. This clean-cut young man is deep in thought as he reads a book. But who is this guy, and who is the artist?
I didn’t notice any wall plaques or labels, but a little research reveals it to be the work of Adlai Stevenson Hardin from the Princeton Class of 1923. During his time at Princeton, he was very involved in extra curricular activities, including art editor of both the Tiger and the Pictorial Campus Magazine, participation on the swim team as well as an undefeated water polo team. After college he eventually settled in New York and had a successful career in advertising for 35 years, but also maintained a studio and worked on sculpture in his free time. It is noted that he often carved in wood, but from what I can gather, this particular figure was carved in limestone.
One exhibition of note in which he participated was a 1941 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Sculpture, Watercolors, Drawings and Prints at the Whitney Museum of American Art. You can actually flip through the catalog for the exhibition here on the Internet Archive; it says he had a bronze piece titled “Balloons,” although there is not a reproduction of the work.