George Greenamyer (born 1939, Cleveland, Ohio, US) is an American sculptor. He received a BFA in 1963 from the Philadelphia College of Art and an MFA in 1969 from the University of Kansas. He was a professor at the Massachusetts College of Art for more than thirty years. His 1983 work includes making use of two turbines from the

Philo Power Plant Philo Power Plant was a 510 megawatt (megawatt, MW), Fossil fuel power station#Coal, coal power plant located in Philo, Ohio, Philo in Muskingum County, Ohio. It was the first power plant in the United States to apply steam reheat and supercritica ...

and

Twin Branch Power Plant Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of TwinLast Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two em ...

as sculptures. The two turbines were mounted onto granite piers were placed in a plaza at the AEP Building in

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...

. From 1988 to 1991, Greenamyer staged an annual event at

Laumeier Sculpture Park Laumeier Sculpture Park is a 105-acre open-air museum and sculpture park located in Sunset Hills, Missouri, near St. Louis and is maintained in partnership with St. Louis County Parks and Recreation Department. It houses over 60 outdoor sculptu ...

in St. Louis, Missouri called "Fire and Ice", in which he fashioned a massive ice sculpture that was then set ablaze over a bonfire. The event suffered several weather-related problems, however. In its first two years, unexpectedly cold weather kept the sculptures from melting properly for the crowd; in 1990 and 1991, unexpectedly warm weather caused the sculptures to melt before the actual event. Laumeier Sculpture Park later commissioned a piece from Greenamyer in memory of its Marketing Director, Debra Lakin: ''Heritage Schooner for Debra Lakin, September 30, 1998''. His sculpture '' Milwaukee'' was installed outside the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee's

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in 1989. It depicts agricultural and urban scenes from Milwaukee's history. In 1991, University of Oregon athletic director Bill Byrne ordered a worker to cut down and remove a newly installed Greenamyer sculpture with a blowtorch. Byrne stated that he had found it "not in character with the rest of the front of the building". Greenamyer himself came to the scene, threatening to chain himself to the $54,000 sculpture to prevent its destruction. After mediation by UO president Myles Brand, it was agreed that the damage already done to the sculpture would be repaired, and it would be reinstalled at another location on campus.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Greenamyer, George 1939 births American male sculptors Living people Massachusetts College of Art and Design faculty University of Kansas alumni University of the Arts (Philadelphia) alumni 20th-century American sculptors 20th-century American male artists 21st-century American sculptors 21st-century American male artists Sculptors from Ohio Artists from Cleveland