Jim Gary

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Jim Gary (March 17, 1939 – January 14, 2006) was an American sculptor popularly known for his large, colorful creations of dinosaurs made from discarded automobile parts and was recognized internationally for his fine, architectural, landscape, and whimsical monumental art. He was born in Sebastian, Florida, but lived in Colts Neck, New Jersey from early infancy.

Jim Gary is the only living sculptor ever invited to present a solo exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Time stated in January 2006 that Gary's work "delighted kids as well as curators, including those at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, where he had an acclaimed solo show in 1990."^[1] During the same month, the Los Angeles Times reported that some critics compared Jim Gary's sculptures with Pablo Picasso's famous bull's head made from a bicycle seat and handlebars.

One of his works, a life-sized figure of a woman composed entirely of hardware gained the admiration of renowned sculptor Jacques Lipchitz at a sidewalk show in New York in the early 1960s.

1 Biography
2 Early career
3 International traveling exhibition launched
4 Annual free display and lectures
5 Garysauruses - a neologism
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Biography

Although born in Florida, Jim Gary was raised from infancy in Colts Neck, New Jersey. While still at grammar school he moved out of his parents' home, making his own living doing odd jobs. For almost a year he secretly slept in the garage of the Sterner family, a prominent Monmouth County couple, who employed him regularly. Once the family discovered him, they provided space in their home for him. He remained close to them until they died.

From junk parts, Jim Gary built what he needed to get about, first a bicycle and soon—long before he was old enough to drive on the roads legally—automobiles. He also developed a deft hand at welding. He competed in gymnastics as a student. After serving in the United States Navy he taught welding and gymnastics in a federal program. Shortly thereafter, applying his welding skills, he began making sculptures that he marketed as architectural elements, and showing his fine art in the New York metropolitan area.

[edit] Early career

Reassured by Lipchitz of the caliber of his work (Lipchitz also made a professional suggestion for a better method of preparing a stand for a life-sized torso Gary had on display), he established his gallery, Iron Butterfly, in Colts Neck featuring other artists he selected as well as his own work, later moving the gallery to Red Bank. The multitalented Gerald Lubeck was one such artist featured at Gary's fledgling gallery. Classes were offered at the gallery by Gary and Virginia Laudano.

Gary's fine art—such as the life-sized Universal Woman—wall units, bronze portraits, and abstracts consistently won top prizes when submitted in the professional show circuits of New York and the surrounding states. He featured stained glass in many of his formal sculptures. He was commissioned to create entire suites of rooms, integrating his sculpture into furniture he built. Commissions included ornate metal doors made to order. He sometimes used the products of clients to create fine art for their offices. Brewers especially liked to give huge seasonal wreaths he constructed from their original cans. One of his works had brass fish swimming through copper seagrass. Some of his sculptures were kinetic. When other artists began to imitate his work, Gary always changed direction. Commissions from clients often asked merely for his interpretation of their favorite subject.

Examples of his many architectural sculptures include his baptismal font for St. Benedict's Catholic Church in nearby Holmdel, his life-sized nudes in metal and stained glass for the Monmouth Opera Society, and the September 11 Memorial at the Municipal Building in Colts Neck.

As he gathered parts for the automobiles he constructed when he was young, Jim Gary realized that these parts resembled anatomical structures of insects, large birds, reptiles, and especially the bones of dinosaurs. Early in his career, he began to construct sculptures of those animals by assembling the automobile parts into almost life-sized models. Common tools became pivotal structures in some of his sculptures. Volkswagens metamorphosed into turtles. Gary had to invent equipment to build and move the huge sculptures, creating the scaffolding, hoists, and vehicles to haul the sculptures around at his rural workshop.

[edit] International traveling exhibition launched

These sculptures provided a unique display that became Jim Gary's hallmark, the traveling exhibition of Jim Gary's Twentieth Century Dinosaurs, which appealed to toddlers through grandparents. Some of his signature sculptures exceeded sixty feet and Gary frequently painted them in bright colors using automobile paints. They often were transported to exhibitions on huge, open flatbed trucks, fascinating fellow travelers on the roads. Impromptu parades formed as drivers followed the dinosaurs to their destination or a stopping point, and people milled around the trucks asking questions and admiring the sculptures. In January 2006, the Los Angeles Times reported that "one of his works, Stegosaurus, is included in Alphabet Animals, a children's book by Charles Sullivan that includes depictions of animals by John James Audubon, Alexander Calder, and Marc Chagall."

Once asked why he built all of the enormous dinosaur sculptures, the typically quiet sculptor responded, "Because people like them." The huge crowds who flocked to his exhibits demonstrated their immense popularity. Grinning Jim Gary birds, critters, and dinosaurs have been featured in articles and on the covers of magazines from Smithsonian and Sculpture Review to National Geographic World. His work has been featured in textbooks, educational videos, newspapers, on the Internet, and on television shows around the world.

After the display became the permanent Jim Gary's Twentieth Century Dinosaurs exhibition, it traveled internationally to museums and universities; was used as sets for films, plays, and operas; was used as exhibits for auto shows and racing events; and was presented as landscape displays in the most elegant of botanical gardens, such as Longwood Gardens on the du Pont estate. This exhibition opened for Jim Gary's unique four-month solo show of his sculpture at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. on April 12, 1990 and, according to the museum director, drew record-breaking attendance to the museum.^[2] Commissioned work and fees for the exhibitions of his work that were so heavily attended became his mainstay. His gallery was closed in favor of marketing through his studio. Selected works offered for sale sometimes accompanied the permanent exhibition that was booked for displays, shows, and exhibits. The traveling exhibition is destined to be displayed in a permanent home where Jim Gary's Twentieth Century Dinosaurs will remain open to the public.

A Jim Gary dinosaur is in the collection of Ripley's Believe It or Not!, which displays the sculpture in its museums and publications. Great numbers of museums especially designed to engage children have hosted exhibitions of Gary's sculpture. Generations have grown up with vivid memories of his work and his encouragement for them to follow his dynamic example. Astounding attendance records demonstrated a cross-cultural popularity in Australia, China, and Japan.

Gary always took the time to make appearances at schools to show children how he made his sculptures and to encourage them to pursue their own creative talents. Along with typical pieces of his work he also provided small sculptures made of materials familiar to children at school lectures. He personally answered every letter sent to him by a youngster.

[edit] Annual free display and lectures

As reported by Karen DeMasters in The New York Times on December 16, 2001 in "Hark, the Pterodactyl's Wing," every year Jim Gary provided hot chocolate, coffee, and cookies to those visiting an illuminated display of his sculpture, open to the public at his home, to celebrate the holidays in December. During the displays Gary gave lectures and led discussions about his work. In 2005, Gary became too ill to manage his traditional and festive seasonal event, choosing instead to display the exhibition at a gallery in a nearby community.

[edit] Garysauruses - a neologism

In a tribute to the sculptor published on February 14, 2006 in a United Kingdom newspaper, The Guardian, its author coined a new word, Garysauruses, a neologism to describe the dinosaurs created by Jim Gary.^[3] The memorials, tributes, and obituaries for Jim Gary were numerous, the international recognition reflecting the wide-spread appeal of his work. The apt name for his dinosaur sculptures has begun to be used by others.