for the 100th anniversary of the invention of the telephone

AT&T Long Lines Headquarters, Bedminster, NJ

“Mr. Watson – come here – I want to see you”. With these words A. Graham Bell is credited with patenting the first practical telephone in year 1875. 

The apparatus designed for “transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically… causing electrical undulations” inspired sculptor John Vassar House to communicate through a coding and decoding respectively of a transmitter and receiver forms. The sending forms therefore reach out while the receiving forms collect. 

John Vassar House kept an updated list of anniversaries that he called “who/when”. This allowed him to provide new ideas and at the same time plan his proposals ahead of time so to contact possible clients in advance.

Sculptor John Vassar House preliminary sketches for the Homage to Alexander Graham Bell sculpture

Sculptor John Vassar House at AG Bell installation 1976