Loco

This is following up on our post about Jeff Koons’s proposed sculpture of a full-sized steam engine hanging from a crane outside the LA County Museum. Since then, we have discovered that the locomotive Koons’s suspended engine will replicate, was originally built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia. So what, really? That is until you hear that the founder of the workshop that makes these monsters, Matthias W. Baldwin, started off as a jeweller and silversmith. In 1831 Baldwin was asked by the Philadelphia Museum to build a miniature locomotive for an exhibition. The miniature was such a success that Baldwin received an order for a full sized version! No big surprise then to also find out that Jeff Koons was born in York, Pennsylvania, just outside Philadelphia.
Image: Baldwin locomotive