Biography
Born in 1924 in New York. In 1940 his family moved to South Brunswick, New Jersey. He remained in New York, studied in 1941-42 at the Cooper Union of Art and Architecture in Manhattan, and obtained his diploma in 1944. From 1942 to 1946 he studied philosophy and literature part-time at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. In 1946 he married Helen Steinberg. In 1947-48 he studied at the Pratt Institute of Design, Brooklyn, and in 1948-49 at the Educational Faculty of the New York University, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in art education. From 1955 he taught at Highland Park Community Center. In 1956 he had his first one-man exhibition at the Hansa Gallery. In 1957 he was represented at the exhibition The New York School: Second Generation at the Jewish Museum, New York. In 1958 he turned his attention to sculpture, experimenting with plaster, burlap, and wire mesh. He taught commercial art at Piscataway High School. He exhibited in Richard Bellamy’s new Green Gallery, New York. In 1961 he taught painting at New Brunswick. He discovered the technique of using medical bandages as material for his art and used himself as a model for Man at a Table, his first plaster cast using bandaging. From 1961 to 1964 he taught at Roosevelt Junior High School. In 1963 he received a Master of Fine Arts from Rutgers University and traveled in Europe. In the same year, he exhibited at the Galerie Ileana Sonnabend. In 1968 he had his first one-man museum exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and was represented at the document “4”, Kassel. In 1968 and 1969 he taught visual art and sculpture at Princetown University. His work tended increasingly towards the portrayal of autobiographical scenes. In 1970 he was awarded the degree of honorary doctor at Rutgers University. In 1971-72 he had a retrospective at Zurich, Munich, Cologne, Rotterdam, Paris, Leverkusen, and Tübingen. In 1972 he was Associate Guest Professor at City University, New York. In 1977 he worked on a sculpture for the Franklin D. Roosevelt monument in Washington. In 1978 he was given a comprehensive retrospective at Minneapolis, San Francisco, and New York. In 1979 he published a pamphlet on plaster cast technique in Rome which was brought out by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1982 a retrospective of his work toured Japan. In 1983 he designed a cover for Time magazine. He was the winner of a competition for the design of a Holocaust memorial. He died in 2000.