Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings
Nancy Holt
American, 1938–2014
1978
A working pencil plan for Nancy Holt’s 1978 Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings, showing the artist’s measured layout of concentric stone rings, arches, and holes intended to align the sculpture with compass points and celestial markers.
Delicate, hand-drawn concentric circles crossed by radial compass lines, handwritten notes, arrows, and precise measurements make the technical layout read like a personal survey—both diagrammatic and intimate.
The sheet shows Holt’s method of translating astronomical observation and site surveying into earthwork, emblematic of the late 1960s–70s shift toward large-scale, site-specific sculpture that links landscape, time, and scientific orientation.
Medium
Pencil on paper
Dimensions
17 3/4 x 12" (45.1 x 30.5 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Sarah-Ann and Werner H. Kramarsky
Accession
334.2008
Palette
Exhibitions
