TREASURE:
Reuben Nakian (1897 - 1986)
Juno (from the Judgment of Paris),
1964-1965
bronze
Permanent loan from Marlin and Ginger Miller

In 1998, the Reading Public Museum developed and exhibited a retrospective of the work of the American sculptor, Reuben Nakian. The retrospective was organized and curated by the then Director, Dr. Robert P. Metzger. The exhibit was presented at the Reading Public Museum and then moved to the retrospective's collaborating museum, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C.

Metzger is the acknowledged expert on the work of Nakian and has written extensively and authoritatively about the sculptor. His knowledge was gained first hand; he was a long time friend of Nakian and indeed the whole Nakian family.

In the catalog Metzger wrote for the exhibit, stating:

The powerful legacy of Reuben Nakian has earned him a coveted place in the history of American art. No other sculptor of the twentieth century has matched Nakian's heroic grapplings with the grand themes of Western art, returning classical mythology to the foreground of human consciousness. His instinctual yet inventive sculptures are ennobling, exploding with maximum emotional intensity. The dynamic sensuousness and voluptuous elegance that characterize his work mark a high point in the long tradition of sculpture from the ancient Greeks to the present. His erotic mythological figures exude a joyous energy of gesture and movement that places them among the seminal sculptural achievements of the past one hundred years.