Considered the masterpiece of sculptor Lorado Taft, the Fountain of Time is one of Chicago's most significant historic artworks. Located at 5900 South Cottage Grove Avenue, it was installed and dedicated in 1922 at the western edge of the University of Chicago's Midway Plaisance, at Payne Drive, within Washington Park. Measuring 126 feet, 10 inches in length, it was inspired by Henry Austin Dobson's poem Paradox of Time. It is Taft's sculptural allegory of humanity's relationship with time. He spent more then a decade working on the sculpture and described the project as his best thought. The monument is composed of an ominous cloaked Father Time figure looking over a reflecting basin towards a 110-foot-long wavelike procession of 100 human figures that represent the universal human theme of love, war and the cycle of life. Babies and children are on the eastern end while soldiers, workers and lovers are in the center and the most elderly figures at the western end. Taft likened the structure to that of a house with a concrete foundation, first floor and roof or walkway over the top. Did you know that, to save on supplies and reduce weight on the foundation, Taft left the inside of the sculpture hollow. Today, restoration experts an access its innards via a knee-high opening in the foundation.

We were driving through the neighborhood when we found this structure, and decided to look at it from our car. I thought it didn't have a head from my angle, but it was something to see it from where we were parked.

The sculpture work is impressive but it was not really much that I could see and I think a sprinkler system can’t be that much. Winter is over. It should be in use and kids should be playing in it but Washington Park looks neither clean or safe for families. Too bad. The people deserve better.

Stopped here as it seemed like an excellent end to our trip.It was.Very huge and stunning monument.Right off the road so easy to find, down the street from a college I believe, and along this big bend (curve).Nicely maintained it seemed, so different than from what I saw in other pics on here, showing green water.Partially paved/partially grass.No parking spaces, but you can park back some along the side of the road (no diagonal parking).Great view in the daytime.

Located in Chicago's Washington Park, at 5900 South Cottage Grove Avenue, at the west end of the University of Chicago's Midway Plaisance, on a 367-acre expanse designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, stands Lorado Taft's Fountain of Time. It is the only realized portion of Taft's grand beautification scheme for the Midway Plaisance, a mile-long and 220-yard-wide area linking Washington and Jackson Parks on Chicago's South Side. The work is not a fountain but a massive 110-foot-long sculptural relief of 100 figures behind a pool of water, traveling from birth to death before a 16-foot-tall mantled figure representing Time. Taft died in 1936 before finishing the model. One of his students, Leonard Crunelle, completed the monument. Standing more than 11 feet tall, George Washington is shown wearing his Commander-in-Chief campaign clothes with the Continental three-cornered hat. The monument, which stood as a refutation of Nazi ideology, was dedicated on December 15, 1941 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who described the work as a great triumvirate of patriots. The massive base features a bronze, bas-relief plaque that depicts as assemblage of people of various professions, ethnicities and backgrounds gathered beneath a seated Goddess of Liberty with outstretched arms.