Stanley Bleifeld (August 28, 1924 – March 26, 2011) was an American
sculptor
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
.
Early life
Born in
Brooklyn, New York
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
, Bleifeld earned bachelor of fine arts, bachelor of science in education and in 1949 a master of fine arts degree in painting at
Tyler School of Art
The Tyler School of Art and Architecture is based at Temple University, a large, urban, public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Tyler currently enrolls about 1,350 undergraduate students and about 200 graduate students in a wid ...
of
Temple University
Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia then called Ba ...
.
After a trip to Rome in 1959 or 1960 he gave up painting for sculpture.
Career
Bleifeld received the following awards: Sculptor of the Year in Pietrasanta and the World, in 2004, the Henry Hering Memorial Medal of the National Sculpture Society, (he was president of the Society from 1991 to 1993), the Medal of Liberty from the American Civil Liberties Union, the Shikler Award from National Academy of Design, among others.
Bleifeld was a National Academician in Sculpture, and a member of the
National Academy of Design
The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fin ...
, and helped set policy for that organization.
Bleifeld’s public monuments include sculptures for the
United States Navy Memorial
The United States Navy Memorial is a memorial in Washington, D.C. honoring those who have served or are currently serving in the Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and the Merchant Marine.
It lies on Pennsylvania Avenue NW between 7th Street Nor ...
(he served in the Navy in World War II) in
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, the
Knights of Columbus
The Knights of Columbus (K of C) is a global Catholic fraternal service order founded by Michael J. McGivney on March 29, 1882. Membership is limited to practicing Catholic men. It is led by Patrick E. Kelly, the order's 14th Supreme Knight. ...
Memorial in Connecticut, and baseball players at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.
The originals of his works ''
The Lone Sailor
''The Lone Sailor'', a 1987 bronze sculpture, is a tribute to all the personnel of the sea services. The sculpture was created by Stanley Bleifeld, for the United States Navy Memorial in Washington, D.C.
History
Rear Admiral William Thompson wa ...
'' and ''
The Homecoming
''The Homecoming'' is a two-act play written in 1964 by Harold Pinter and first published in 1965. Its premières in London (1965) and New York (1967) were both directed by Sir Peter Hall. The original Broadway production won the 1967 Tony A ...
'' are two created for the Navy Memorial.
Subsequently, a number of replicas deployed across the United States.
On October 13, 2017, the occasion of the 242nd anniversary of the United States Navy, a replica of ''The Lone Sailor'' was dedicated in
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Re ...
, Hawaii.
His work is in numerous private collections throughout the world.
In 2008, his monument to the
Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
, ''It Seemed like Reaching for the Moon'' was dedicated at the statehouse in Richmond, Virginia.
Personal life and death
In 1949, Bleifeld married Naomi Ruby. The couple had two daughters, Becky and Emily.
From 1950 until his death he lived and worked in Weston, CT, spending part of each year at a home and studio in
Pietrasanta Pietrasanta is a town and ''comune'' on the coast of northern Tuscany in Italy, in the province of Lucca. Pietrasanta is part of Versilia, on the last foothills of the Apuan Alps, about north of Pisa. The town is located off the coast, where the ...
, Italy.
Bleifeld died from a
cerebral hemorrhage
Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as cerebral bleed, intraparenchymal bleed, and hemorrhagic stroke, or haemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain, into its ventricles, or into both. It is one kind of bleed ...
following a fall at his Weston studio.
References
Further reading
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External links
* (artist's website)
*
1924 births
2011 deaths
Artists from Brooklyn
Temple University alumni
American male sculptors
20th-century American sculptors
20th-century American male artists
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