High-profile: ‘Freedom’s Silhouette’ goes on loan at Thoreau’s birthplace

A reflective silhouette of Henry David Thoreau has a new home — right outside the house where the “Walden” author was born. 

Acton’s “Freedom’s Silhouette” art piece, featuring sleek profiles of Thoreau and activist Ellen Garrison, recently went on display outside Thoreau Farm. 

The reflective figures debuted on benches in Monument Square in 2024.

Crews removed the benches in mid-May, and Economic Vitality Manager Mimi Graney confirmed the full installation is “on loan” at Thoreau’s birthplace. 

The advisory committee that picked the artwork “hoped the benches might eventually find their way” to locations connected to Thoreau and Garrison, she told The Acton Bridge.

Joni Spinazola works part time at the farmhouse and admired the newly installed display last Friday afternoon. “It’s lovely,” she said. 

Spinazola thinks “this is a good spot” for the figures but mused about their possibly toggling between Thoreau Farm and The Robbins House, where Garrison once lived. 

“That would be very cool,” she said.

The Thoreau Farm loan agreement runs until May 2028, Graney told The Bridge, at which point the benches and silhouettes could either stay at the farm or move again.

The Robbins House is an option, but that will depend on how the display holds up.

“The original art commission was for an installation of just a few months,” Graney said. “[S]o this is a life far extending its original intent.”