The monumental new sculpture Rocket by Hubert Phipps has been selected for an Art in Public Places initiative in South Florida, at the Boca Raton Innovation Campus (BRiC), the historic tech landmark where the first IBM Personal Computer was invented. The new public art program is part of a cultural partnership between the Boca Raton Museum of Art and CP Group.
South Florida officials heralded this announcement with an unveiling ceremony at BRiC, officially welcoming Rocket as one of the largest outdoor sculptures ever chosen for a public art initiative in Palm Beach County. The Phipps sculpture is valued at $1.5 million, stands 30-feet tall, weighs 9.8 tons, and took more than 2,200 square feet of stainless steel to construct. Rocket was fabricated in Hangzhou, China at the Tany Foundry, out of sheet grade AISI 316 stainless steel, with the armature constructed out of AISI 304 steel.
The Rocket sculpture towers alongside a waterfront panorama of iconic architecture designed by Marcel Breuer in the 1960s. The gleaming, stainless steel reflecting Rocket was two years in the making, with a nod to Sci Fi retro futurism. The Campus encourages visitors to walk around and underneath it, to enjoy their funhouse mirror images on the shiny surface.
The nationally acclaimed artist Hubert Phipps was also a champion race car driver (National Champion in the SCCA 1981 Formula Atlantic) and is commemorating his upcoming 50th anniversary as an aviator. Phipps often pilots his Airbus Helicopter H-120 down to Palm Beach from his artist studio in Virginia. The Phipps family were early pioneers of Palm Beach, and adventures in aviation are a longtime tradition for the family ‒ one of his ancestors, Amy Phipps Guest, was one of the first women aviators back in the 1920s. She championed Amelia Earhart’s successful transoceanic flight in 1928.
Hubert Phipps is based in Middleburg, Virginia, where his studio is located. In 2021, he will be featured in a solo gallery show during Art Basel Season at TW Fine Art in Palm Beach. He was part of the Art Students League of New York at the age of 17, and studied at the San Francisco Art Institute. He also participated in programs at Escape Studios in London and the New York Studio School. His works are featured in the permanent collections of major museums, institutions and private collectors, including: Tufts University Art Galleries (MA); Boca Raton Museum of Art (FL); Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center (CO); Harn Museum of Art (FL); Georgia Museum of Art (Athens, GA); Coral Springs Museum of Art (FL); and the Flint Institute of Arts (MI) which recently selected Paradise, the monumental bronze sculpture by Phipps, where the 1.5 ton, 9-foot-tall work is currently on view.