Mia Westerlund Roosen: The Carmelites

The Hyde Collection announces a new program of annually rotating sculpture on the grounds of the museum, starting in 2024 with Mia Westerlund Roosen’s Carmelites 1 and 2. Mia Westerlund Roosen (American, born 1942) emerged in the 1970s as one of the most prominent female sculptors at a time when the impersonal and factory-finished style of Minimalism dominated the art world. Her early career interests in dance motivated her to work with the sensuality of the body as a key point of departure. Roosen adeptly turns materials that appear weighty and hard into flexible, organic forms. The animated Carmelites on view at The Hyde are captured in a kind of sculptural freeze-frame as they chase each other across the museum lawn.

Roosen has work in the collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Guggenheim, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yale Art Gallery, and other institutions. Additional work by Roosen can be seen regionally at Storm King Art Center and Salem Art Works, a sculpture park and residency program for artists working in media including sculpture, glass blowing, and woodworking.

In 2025, The Hyde’s grounds will be host to a major installation of large-scale kinetic sculptures by George Rickey (American, 1907–2002). Additional outdoor sculpture at The Hyde includes work by Dorothy Dehner, Dan George, Milton Hebald, and John Van Alstine.