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Research dossier · Arts & Letters

Maxwell & Demon Gargoyle

outdoor sculpture by Wayne Chabre

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 28, 2026
Entity authorityQ21188474 ↗
Source-derived summary

Maxwell & Demon Gargoyle is an outdoor 1989 sculpture by Wayne Chabre, installed in Eugene, Oregon, in the United States. It is a low-relief portrait depicting Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell and his "demon", attached to the exterior of Willamette Hall on the University of Oregon campus. The hammered copper sheet sculpture measures approximately 3.15 feet (0.96 m) x 2.5 feet (0.76 m) x 1.5 feet (0.46 m). Its condition was undetermined when the Smithsonian Institution's "Save Outdoor Sculpture!" program surveyed the work in 1994.

Editorial summary

“Maxwell & Demon Gargoyle” enters the record as outdoor sculpture by Wayne Chabre. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Maxwell, Demon and Gargoyle can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1989, 1994—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Maxwell, Demon and Gargoyle.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Maxwell & Demon Gargoyle” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Maxwell, Demon and Gargoyle provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q21188474. Authority coordinates are 44.046, -123.073. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1989 and 1994.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Maxwell & Demon Gargoyle”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Maxwell & Demon Gargoyle primary sources, Maxwell & Demon Gargoyle archive and Maxwell research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Maxwell & Demon Gargoyle”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Maxwell & Demon Gargoyle” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.