This gently rounded and top-heavy sculpture evokes the form of an owl. Its title then turns this abstract form, cast (with its base) in cement, into a lyrical metaphor for that animal’s dreaming consciousness. Owl’s Drea came to Philadelphia as a consequence of the artist’s association with Albert E. Gallatin, who in 1933 was the first American collector to purchase works by Jean Arp. Gallatin went on to be a key promoter of this artist through exhibitions at his Museum of Living Art, located in New York’s Greenwich Village. He closed his museum in 1943 and loaned the collection to the Philadelphia Museum of Art with the expectation of its eventual donation, which occurred in 1954. In the interim, Arp gave Owl’s Dream to the Gallatin Collection, thereby adding a sculpture in the round to holdings by Arp that up to that point had consisted of wood reliefs and paper collages.