Sculptor’s Son Views Father’s Work

Colorado Academy recently welcomed David Hayes to campus, son of the late artist by the same name whose large “elephant” sculpture graces the exterior of the new Ponzio Arts Center.

The younger Hayes runs Hayes Artworks, and with his siblings, he curates exhibitions for the work of their father, the noted sculptor, including some ten solo museum exhibitions over the past eighteen months.

He visited CA to see his father’s work, a sculpture donated by Craig Ponzio upon completion of the new Arts Center. The sculptor had some 400 exhibitions and his work is included in more than 100 institutional collections including those of the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.  The artist is known for his monumental welded steel abstract sculptures of animal forms. In 2007, he was conferred an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree by Albertus Magnus College. He worked in Coventry, Connecticut, and Paris, France over a period of six decades.

The sculpture becomes part of Colorado Academy’s collection of outdoor art including most recent gifts in 2014 from former CA Trustee Bob Benson and his wife Cynthia. Those works included work by the New York-based artist Hans Van de Bovenkamp and Denver sculptor Robert Mangold.