Raptors

Philip McCracken

King County District Court, East Division – Issaquah Courthouse

Bronze reliefs take their inspiration from ancient masterworks.

Philip McCracken (1928-2021). Raptors, 1978. Cast bronze. King County District Court, East Division, Issaquah, WA. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: 4Culture

In 1954, Philip McCracken was working in England as a studio assistant for renowned artist Henry Moore. At Moore’s suggestion, McCracken visited the British Museum in London, where he discovered limestone relief sculptures of birds and animals by Greek sculptors circa 470 B.C. “These together with the Egyptian and Assyrian friezes made a profound impression on me and I returned again and again to look at them,” McCracken said in a speech at the inauguration of Raptors in 1978.

More than 20 years later, McCracken was back in England, struggling to figure out what he was going to create for a new commission from the King County Arts Commission, as 4Culture was then known. He went back to the British Museum and saw the pieces that had moved him decades earlier. Days later, he rose early in the morning and made the initial drawings for these panels in just a few minutes. “None of them changed,” McCracken noted, “except a slight change in the gesture” of one of the five bronze reliefs.

Originally sited at the since-demolished Kingdome in Seattle, Raptors was commissioned as part of the Honors Program, which recognizes visual artists who have made significant contributions to our region through the sustained production of high-quality artwork.

Born in Bellingham, WA, and based on Guemes Island in Puget Sound for much of his life, McCracken (1928–2021) is perhaps best known for his sculptures of the natural world, particularly the birds and animals of the Pacific Northwest. He studied not only with Moore in England, but also with celebrated Seattle sculptors George Tsutakawa, Everett DuPen, and Charles Smith while he was a student at the University of Washington. McCracken’s work has been widely exhibited in the United States and is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, The Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., and Seattle Art Museum.