Biography from AskART:
| Born in New York City, Neil Estern earned his reputation as a portrait, figure, and and monument sculptor whose subjects were political and entertainment figures and commemoration of significant persons. His depictions include Danny Kaye, President Jimmy Carter, J. Edgar Hoover, J Robert Taft, Prince Charles, Lady Diana, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Jack Nicholson.
His first public commission was a portrait for the monument of John F. Kennedy for the Kennedy Memorial, finished in 1965 and located in Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn. That same year, he began a monument to Fiorello La Guardia, a former mayor of New York (1934-1945) for La Guardia airport. However that project was never completed due to lack of money, but he did execute the design for the nine-inch bronze figure of La Guardia that became an annual award to those who gave special financial contributions to the city. A larger-than-life-size figure of Estern's La Guardia was then installed in Greenwich Village at La Guardia Place in 1992.
Estern also designed a commemorative plaque for Prospect Park in New York that has the likenesses of the Park's designers Calvert Vaux and Frederick law Olmsted, and he designed metals of the Park that were given during the Park's centennial celebration to donors.
Born in New York City, his art education began with Saturday morning art classes at the Pratt Institute. When he was fifteen he began study at the School of Industrail Arts in Manhattan, which began his association with working sculptors such as Frank Eliscu, a member of the National Sculpture Society. In 1947, Estern earned a B.F.A. degree from Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia, and from 1946 to 1947, he studied at the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania.
He has worked from his studio in Brooklyn, New York.
Source:
Donald Martin Reynolds, "Masters of American Sculpture"
"Who's Who in American Art, 2003-2004" |
| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|