Humpty Dumpty Encore

tanjabrittonwriter 58 Comments

If you were raised in an Anglophone country and are of a certain age, chances are you became familiar with the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme while growing up. As I spent the first two decades of life in Germany, I didn’t. When and where I first heard the poem I no longer recall, and I knew very little about it until I did a little reading in preparation for a post I published on October 21, 2020, which some of you might remember.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men

Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

According to several online sources, the quatrain started out as a riddle, to which the answer might or might not have been “egg.” The consensus seems to be that Humpty Dumpty became associated with an anthropomorphic egg only after Lewis Carroll’s 1871 Through the Looking Glass (the sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland). (If you would like to read Through the Looking Glass, follow this link to an online version of the book, courtesy of Project Gutenberg, and click on chapter 6, titled Humpty Dumpty). The nursery rhyme’s long and illustrious career includes being set to music, and countless online versions of the song exist, available to you at your leisure.

Colorado Springs’ civic, cultural, and economic interests are the concern of the Downtown Partnership. Its charitable nonprofit arm, Downtown Ventures, has been behind the popular annual Art on the Streets project which “celebrates the power of art in public places,” and which I have reported on regularly in this blog.

Each year since 1998, submissions from artists are selected and displayed downtown for 12 months. A number of the exhibits have become permanent installations when purchased by an individual or organization. Such was the case with the 2003 submission, Hump D, fashioned by Minneapolis-based artist Kimber Fiebiger.

Hump D, the original

Displayed on a low wall adjacent to the Pikes Peak Center for the Performing Arts on Cascade Avenue, the bronze became so popular that a local business, the Norwood Development Group, has since commissioned similar designs and placed them in various locations throughout the city. Most of them are seated on the walls of the Plaza of the Rockies building between Tejon Street and Nevada Avenue, the two major downtown thoroughfares. Eggschange, the two chess-playing humpties are located between the Plaza and the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum, visible in the background in the featured photo above. They welcome visitors to join them for a round of chess.

Since my first selection of humpty dumpties was featured here in 2020, the collection has grown significantly and I would like to share more eggcellent bronzes. Eggschange, Eggsplorer, Robin Egg, and Free Range Egg are all 2024 arrivals (the names are part of the fun).

I never tire of looking at these jovial and happy creations without feeling jovial and happy myself, and I hope the same will be true for you.

To enlarge a photo, click on it. To read its caption, hover cursor over it.

Humpty Dumpties first shown in 2020

Eggzellent
My Egg Benedict
Maestro
Caviar
Eggie the Eagle
Great Fall
Egghead

 

Humpty Dumpties added since 2020

Eggcited, located on N. Weber Street
Jam’n Egg, located on S. Cascade Ave
Eggspressionist
Deviled Egg
Robin Egg
Eggsplorer
Free Range Egg
Eggschange

PS: Three sculptures have found homes in the suburbs, and these I have yet to visit.

58 thoughts on “Humpty Dumpty Encore”

  1. Oh your poor childhood-no Humpty Dumpty! 😊 I didn’t realize it wouldn’t be outside of the English speaking countries. These Humptys are so fun. Eddie the Eagle is my favourite but the picked egg runs a close second. Maggie

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  2. Köstlich!
    Deine Sammlung ist schon ganz schön umfangreich.
    Ich könnte mich für keine Bronze entscheiden. Mag sie alle 🥚
    Liebe Grüße Brigitte.
    PS Ich habe meinen Blog auf “Privat” umgestellt.
    Vielleicht magst du den Bees 👣🐾🐾 auch privat folgen
    Hab einen wunderschönen Tag liebe Tanja.

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  4. Das sind entzückende Figuren. Ich mag sie alle, gute Laune versprühen sie. IN Texas habe ich in in Wichita Falls überal bunte Pferdefiguren in der Stadt gesehen und in San Angelo hatte man sich für bunte künstlerisch gestaltete Schaffiguren entschieden. Wir in Osterholz Scharmbeck hatten überall bunte BUllen stehen für einige Jahre, Sehr spannend sind diese Aktionen in den Städten.
    Man geht unwillkürlich auf die Suche.
    LG
    MAren

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  9. They’re delightfully quirky, and are guaranteed to raise a smile. I particularly like Eggschange, perhaps because I get two Humpties for the price of one. But why they are so keen on chess baffles me (and you too, I suspect, if our recent correspondence is anything to go by!) They’d be better doing a bit of birdwatching.

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    • What a fun coincidence that our respective posts this week have a chess theme. And while I, like you, can’t relate to the appeal of this game, I like the idea of people sitting down next to those two eggs, pulling out their chess pieces, and attracting a crowd to watch and comment.

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  12. What a nice collection. They’re so varied and unique. Although unique to English-speaking countries as a nursery rhyme and riddle, Humpty Dumpty is universal and has been translated globally. These sculptures are unique studies of character, and evoke so much joy and laughter. Thanks for sharing!

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  13. It must be one ‘weird’ King who would call on all his horses to cure H.D. of exoskeleton trauma. I’ve heard of a few intelligent horses in history, but none with a gift of healing.

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  14. A centaur might reply; “To suggest that one of my stature should busy himself with mending nursery rhyme casualties is an insult most profound. I am no mere patcher of shells, but a creature of wisdom and might. Let those with lesser gifts concern themselves with such trifles!”

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  17. How wonderfully creative! My favorites are the original and the egghead, although I did laugh aloud at Mr. Egg Benedict. This was one of the first verses I learned as a child, and by about third grade we were coming up with parodies that left us giggling away. An example: “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men had scrambled eggs for breakfast!” Kids!

    There’s a town near here that has been doing something similar with pelicans for years, and now a town in the other direction has begun doing the same with herons. They’re such fun to see, especially when I come across a new one unexpectedly.

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    • I won’t even try to pick a favorite, think each and every egg has its eggscellent sides. Scrambled is definitely one of those–I think your parody makes perfect sense, just thinking things thoroughly through!

      It’s wonderful when communities encourage art and artists and come up with various themes. It’s so enriching for everybody involved. Not surprisingly, I love the idea of both pelicans and herons! 😊

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  18. On our trip we passed through Grand Junction, which seemed like it had to be the biggest town in the region. Wondering how big it is, a few minutes ago I pulled up a list of the most populous places in Colorado. I was surprised to see that Colorado Springs now has half a million people, second in the state only to Denver, of which it has about 2/3 as many people. And Aurora, which is just an eastern extension of Denver, follows with another 400,000 people. No other town in Colorado has even half as many people as Aurora, so “the Big Three” stand apart.

    It’s easy to understand why you’ve been lamenting the loss of land in a natural state near you.

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  21. Definitely familiar with the Humpty Dumpty story, but the reality is I never knew what it really meant beyond scrambled eggs for supper (somehow the two got associated in my childhood ha). I love these sculptures, especially the amazing expressions they were able to incorporate.

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