[Unveiled 1880]
1759-1796 b. Alloway, Ayrshire, Scotland •
d. Dumfries, Dumfriesshire, Scotland
Sculpted: 1880
Sculptor: Sir John Steell 1804-1891 • Scotland
Gift of Scottish-Americans
Seated on a tree stump with a quill pen
in one hand is the bronze sculpture of
Robert Burns, Scottland’s most renowned
literary figure. This statue is one of many
located at Literary Walk in Central Park.
Burns celebrated Scotland’s landscape
with its moors, bogs and highlands in his
folksongs yet reached a deep pathos in
his poetry about friendship, love and
loneliness.
His most well known song "Auld Lang Syne”
is a mirror to his lasting popularity.
As he looks up to heaven, he is thinking of
his true love Mary “Highland” Campbell, who
died at an early age. It was to her that he
had written the poem “Highland Mary”
inscribed on the scroll at his feet.
