Boston has many iconic landmarks, from the Old North Church to the Paul Revere House to Fenway Park. But when it comes to identifying the cutest Boston landmark, one stands feathered-head and shoulders above all the rest:
The Make Way for Ducklings sculpture, located in the Boston Public Garden, has been a site of joy, play, and public art since it was erected in 1987. Robert McCloskey’s 1941 book of the same name and inspiration for the sculpture details the adventures of Mr. and Mrs. Mallard and their ducklings as they travel through Boston looking for a place to build their nest, ending up at the Public Garden. Images of Mrs. Mallard and her ducklings’ statues are featured on souvenirs and a draw for locals and tourists alike.
TARC is delighted to now play a small part in that legacy by housing the papers of the sculpture’s artist, SMFA graduate Nancy Schön!
While Make Way for Ducklings may be her most locally well-known piece, Schön is a prolific artist with decades of work creating public art and sculpture. Nancy (Quint) Schön was born in Newton, Massachusetts on September 24, 1928. After earning her associates degree from General College at Boston University in 1948, she began her professional art career working at a pottery studio in Cambridge. From this work she developed her profile for eventual admission into the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. She graduated in 1952. Her final project, depicting a pregnant mother with a child perched on her shoulders, earned a place in the SMFA graduation show.
Make Way for Ducklings isn’t the only Schön piece you can visit in the Boston area. Schön’s sculptures can be found across the region, with some notable pieces including Eeyore on the Children's Patio in Newton (1991), the Tortoise and the Hare in Copley Square (1995), and Charlie the Snail at the Boston Children’s Hospital (2020). Throughout the city, her works are crafted to be interacted with and enjoyed, as her choice of bronze metal ensures their longevity. Schön’s pieces aren’t confined to Boston or even the United States either – Make Way for Ducklings was so beloved on its installation that then-First Lady of the Soviet Union Raissa Gorbachev commissioned a duplicate to be placed in Novodevichy Convent Park in Moscow in 1991.
Schön’s current work focuses on political and humanitarian issues. She created “The Noble Journey” in 2024 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the St. Leonard of Port Maurice Catholic Church. The piece represented the church’s presence a beacon for Italian immigrants throughout the 19th and 20th century. It also served to comment on the importance of immigration to the United States of America in the face of anti-immigration rhetoric. Additionally, Schön debuted an artistic comment in 2024 on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by sculpting a bronze military boot with a bear’s head stomping down on a tiny nightingale, the state bird of Ukraine.
Accessioned at TARC during the fall of 2026, the Nancy Schön papers at TARC hold correspondence, personal material, photographs, clippings, business records, and planning documents for various art projects, chronicling Schön’s personal and professional life. The bulk of the materials covers the 1980s and 90s, but Schön’s work in later decades is still well-represented. Some topics of interest in the collection include documentation of her sculptures’ development from conception to production to installation, as well as Schön’s promotion of public art and arts education as a general public good. There is a unique and significant collection of correspondence, photographs, clippings, and notes about Schön’s experience visiting Moscow during the final days of the Soviet Union in July 1991. Schön’s business records document the financial side of being a professional artist, and her publicity files demonstrate the networking and community engagement in which she has partaken throughout her career as a public artist in Boston and beyond.
Finally, along with Schön’s paper records, the collection includes the eight original plasters used to create the casts for the bronze Make Way for Ducklings statues in the Public Garden. Now in their permanent home in the TARC stacks, they have been lovingly placed in archival boxes specially crafted for their unique dimensions.
