Courtesy Free Library of Philadelphia

One of Alexander Calder's banners on display at the Free Library of Philadelphia

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The banners, which bear abstract, nature-inspired imagery, were commissioned along with a giant steel sculpture by Jean Dubuffet and Claes Oldenburg's now-iconic clothespin sculpture to adorn a building across from Philadelphia's City Hall as a requirement of the city's Redevelopment Authority.

The building's main tenant at the time, First Pennsylvania Bank wanted "a general on a horse," but developer Jack Wolgin, also an art collector, told them, "No. You're getting a clothespin," according to Wolgin's attorney, Robert Weinberg.

The building has changed hands several times since opening in 1976. In the early 1980s a previous owner removed the banners, which range from 18 to 28 feet in length, as part of a renovation of the atrium. When Redevelopment Authority officials tried to locate the banners in the 1990s, they were told by the building manager at the time that they'd been destroyed.

Around 2000, the building was sold again, to MetLife, and the Authority tried again. This time a new building manager, Greg Frazier, was willing to help, and spent weeks searching through the development's countless storage spaces before finding the banners in storage tubs, relatively unharmed and unfaded.

Now, after years of negotiations between various building owners and potential hosts, four of the eight works are finally on temporary display in the central branch of the Philadelphia Free Library on Logan Square.

Susan Davis, who is credited with organizing the exhibition and who stepped down as director of the Redevelopment Authority six weeks ago, is hoping the works will be cleaned and will find an appropriate permanent home. They are on view at the library until March.

Wolgin, who recently donated $3.7 million to the Tyler School of Art to endow an annual $150,000 juried art prize, also weighed in on the finding. "All of these great works of art were intended to be viewed and enjoyed by the public on a permanent basis, and it is truly sad that they have been hidden for years in a basement out of public view," he said.