Gary Weisman was born in Chicago in 1952. He was educated at the School of the Chicago Art Institute, and Columbia College, Chicago. In 1982, Weisman became a drawing instructor at Manatee College in Sarasota, Florida, and from 1986 until the present, he teaches at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.Weisman is the recipient of various awards and commissions, and is represented in collections across the United States.Weisman has participated in group exhibitions since 1987, and from 1989 has had various solo exhibitions.
In Weisman’s sculpture, his intense search for contemporary content seems to continually involve a retrieval of the past. Being figurative, his work confronts the preeminent motif of all historical sculpture. His figures reflect the influence of the canons of Greek design, the romance of the Renaissance and, later, Rodin, as well as the universal sculptural language of Brancusi or Egyptian stelae. Most of all, Weisman’s work continues the timeless preoccupation we have with ourselves, our bodies, and the human condition. In it, he extrapolates the drama that our bodies and beings create, and inspires in the viewer a sense of awe for the heroics we can mentally construct, or physically perform.
It is Weisman’s ability to touch upon a spiritual component that holds such promise for the future for this young sculptor. Spirit is an ingredient that often manifests itself later in an artist’s life, and Weisman’s ability to touch upon it, now, distinguishes his work more than any other factor. Weisman insists on doing each stage of creating a sculpture by himself. As his own modeler, caster, foundryman, and patinist, he is able to exploit the characteristics of each process to enhance the end result he envisions. The fortitude, knowledge, and skill to work in this fashion are rare attributes, today.
Excerpts from “Gary Weisman, Sculpture and Drawing” by Frederick S. Osborne, Director, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
