Dressed in a windbreaker and simple cap and seated casually upon a rock, this bronze figure looks almost indistinguishable from any tourist visiting the Boston shore on a cloudy weekend. In fact, it is the likeness of Harvard professor Samuel Eliot Morison, the foremost American naval historian of the twentieth century. Morison won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Christopher Columbus and personally sailed several of the routes Columbus is believed to have followed. However, Morison also evoked controversy by authoring a textbook with insensitive comments about slavery. With her unpretentious depiction, sculptor Penelope Jencks downplays Morison’s roles as professor and provocateur and emphasizes his passion for the sea.