Leo Amino was a

Japanese-American are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asia ...

sculptor known for his

Abstract Expressionist Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

sculptures created with a variety of materials, including wood, wire, and plastics.

Biography

Born in 1911 in Taiwan, to Japanese parents, he spent much of his early life in Tokyo, where his father's calligraphy and his mother's floral design interested him in working in art. He immigrated to the United States in 1929, enrolling at

San Mateo Junior College College of San Mateo (CSM) is a public community college in San Mateo, California. It is part of the San Mateo County Community College District. College of San Mateo is located at the northern corridor of Silicon Valley and situated on a 1 ...

before briefly attending

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

. In 1937 he began studying

direct carving This page describe terms and jargon related to sculpture and sculpting. __NOTOC__ A armature :An armature is an internal frame or skeleton which supports a modelled sculpture. A typical armature for a small sculpture is made of heavy gauge ...

at under

Chaim Gross Chaim Gross (March 17, 1902 – May 5, 1991) was an American sculptor and educator of Ukrainian Jewish origin. Childhood Gross was born to a Jewish family in Austrian Galicia, in the village of Wolowa (now known as Mizhhiria, Ukraine), in t ...

at the

American Artists School The American Artists School was a progressive independent art school in New York City associated with socialism and the American Radical movement. The school was founded in April 1936 at 131 West 14th Street, upon the dissolution of the John Re ...

. His pieces were included in the

1939 New York World's Fair The 1939–40 New York World's Fair was a world's fair held at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York, United States. It was the second-most expensive American world's fair of all time, exceeded only by St. Louis's Louisiana Purchas ...

alongside those of

Isamu Noguchi was an American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public artworks, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and several ...

. Another influence was sculptor

Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi- abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. As well as sculpture, Moore produced ...

, whose work Amino encountered on a trip to England in 1938. Amino's artistic career was briefly halted by

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, during which time he was made to work as a translator for the

US Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...

. After the war concluded, he noticed the increased availability of

synthetic resin Synthetic resins are industrially produced resins, typically viscous substances that convert into rigid polymers by the process of curing. In order to undergo curing, resins typically contain reactive end groups, such as acrylates or epoxides. ...

due to its use as a substitute for materials that were needed for the war effort. He became the first artist to experiment with and use synthetic resin as an artistic medium, alternating between resin and wood in his sculptures. In the summers of 1946 and 1950, he taught at

Black Mountain College Black Mountain College was a private liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and several others. The college was ideologically organized around John Dewey's educational ...

, and from 1952 until 1977 taught at

Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...

. Amino died on December 1, 1989, in New York City. His work is held at institutions including the Asheville Art Museum,

Carnegie Museum of Art The Carnegie Museum of Art, is an art museum in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Originally known as the Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute and was at what is now the Main Branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsbur ...

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...

Montclair Art Museum The Montclair Art Museum (MAM) is located in Montclair, New Jersey, United States, a few miles west of New York City. Since it opened in 1914 as the first museum in New Jersey that granted access to the public and the first dedicated solely to a ...

, The

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

Newark Museum The Newark Museum of Art (formerly known as the Newark Museum), in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, United States, is the state's largest museum. It holds major collections of American art, decorative arts, contemporary art, and arts of Asia, Af ...

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

, and the

Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum (known popularly as the Zimmerli Art Museum) is located on the Voorhees Mall of the campus of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The museum houses more than 60,000 works, including Russian and ...

Group exhibitions

* ''Carvers-Modelers-Welders'', Museum of Modern Art, New York (1950) * ''American Sculpture'',

The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 F ...

, New York (1951) * ''The New Decade: 35 American Painters and Sculptors,'' Whitney Museum of American Art (1955) * ''Plastics'', John Daniels Gallery (1965) * ''A Plastic Presence'',

The Jewish Museum The Jewish Museum is an art museum and repository of cultural artifacts, housed at 1109 Fifth Avenue, in the former Felix M. Warburg House, along Museum Mile on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. The first Jewish museum in the Unit ...

, New York (1970; also traveled to the Milwaukee Art Center and the San Francisco Museum of Art) * ''Vital Forms: American Art and Design in the Atomic Age'',

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

, New York (2001; also traveled to the

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, t ...

, Minneapolis;

Frist Center for the Visual Arts The Frist Art Museum, formerly known as the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, is an art exhibition hall in Nashville, Tennessee, housed in the city's historic U.S. Post Office building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. ...

, Nashville;

San Diego Museum of Art The San Diego Museum of Art is a fine arts museum located at 1450 El Prado in Balboa Park in San Diego, California that houses a broad collection with particular strength in Spanish art. The San Diego Museum of Art opened as The Fine Arts Galler ...

; and

Phoenix Art Museum The Phoenix Art Museum is the largest museum for visual art in the southwest United States. Located in Phoenix, Arizona, the museum is . It displays international exhibitions alongside its comprehensive collection of more than 18,000 works of ...

) * ''Black Mountain College: Una aventura americana'',

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía The ''Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía'' ("Queen Sofía National Museum Art Centre"; MNCARS) is Spain's national museum of 20th-century art. The museum was officially inaugurated on September 10, 1992, and is named for Queen Sofía. It ...

, Madrid (2003) * ''Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933–1957'', Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2015–2016; also traveled to

Hammer Museum The Hammer Museum, which is affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, is an art museum and cultural center known for its artist-centric and progressive array of exhibitions and public programs. Founded in 1990 by the entrepreneur- ...

, Los Angeles, 2016; and

Wexner Center for the Arts The Wexner Center for the Arts is the Ohio State University's "multidisciplinary, international laboratory for the exploration and advancement of contemporary art". The Wexner Center opened in November 1989, named in honor of the father of Limite ...

, Columbus, 2016–2017)

Solo exhibitions

* ''Polymorphic Sculpture: Leo Amino’s Experiments in Three Dimensions'', Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick (October 20, 2018—April 12, 2020) * ''Leo Amino: The Visible and the Invisible'',

David Zwirner Gallery David Zwirner Gallery is an American contemporary art gallery owned by David Zwirner. It has four gallery spaces in New York City and one each in London, Hong Kong, and Paris. History The Zwirner Gallery opened in 1993 on the ground floor of ...

, New York (July 6-31, 2020) * ''Leo Amino: Work with Material'',

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) is an exhibition and performance space and resource center located at 120 College Street on Pack Square Park in downtown Asheville, North Carolina dedicated to preserving and continuing the ...

, Asheville (September 30, 2022-January 7, 2023)

References

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Amino, Leo College of San Mateo alumni American artists of Japanese descent Japanese emigrants to the United States American military personnel of Japanese descent Black Mountain College faculty Cooper Union faculty 1911 births 1989 deaths Abstract expressionist artists Japanese sculptors 20th-century American sculptors