Contact: Susan Pontious 415-252-2587

California artist Gwynn Murrill conveys the power and essence of two great cats on the prowl in two new life-sized bronze sculptures of a tiger and a cougar in the entry plaza of the renovated San Francisco Zoo.

Facing the entrance at one end of the landscaped oval island in the plaza center is Tiger 2, watchful and seemingly ready to pounce from a seated position. The crouched Cougar III faces the other way at the opposite end of the island.

Murrill, a sculptor for 35 years, has always used animals as her subject matter. Avoiding surface detail and complexity, she captures her subject’s unique posture, movement and pure form with authority. In the zoo’s entry plaza, her creatures appear to roam their own habitat, inviting interaction while remaining intent on their own purposes.

Tiger 2 is the first casting of a tiger sculpture Murrill completed this year. She began her first drawings for the work three years ago while visiting the zoo. Cougar III is the seventh casting of a limited edition she created in 1996.

Gwynn Murrill has exhibited her works in galleries and museums throughout the United States, including the John Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco. Her sculptures are represented in numerous public collections, including those of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the TransAmerica Corporation in San Francisco, and the American Embassy in Singapore. Her past awards include a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist Grant, a Prix di Roma Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome, and a New Talent Purchase Award from the Los Angeles County Art Museum.

The San Francisco Arts Commission purchased Tiger 2 and Cougar III for the zoo in accord with the City’s art enrichment ordinance which, for every new or renovated civic improvement project, provides for an art enrichment allocation equivalent to two percent of the project construction budget. An independent panel selected Gwynn Murrill from a pool of approximately 200 applicants from the western states.