In 1922, Horace Rackham donated a casting of Auguste Rodin's sculpture, "The Thinker", acquired from a German collection, to the museum where it was exhibited while the new building was under construction. The work was placed in the Great Hall of the new museum building. Sometime in the subsequent years the work was moved out of the building and placed on a pedestal in front of the building, facing Woodward Avenue and the Detroit Public Library across the street which was also constructed of white marble in the Beaux-Arts, Italian Renaissance style .