Leroy Lamis (1925–2010) was an American sculptor, digital artist and art educator known for his work with

Plexiglas Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) belongs to a group of materials called engineering plastics. It is a transparent thermoplastic. PMMA is also known as acrylic, acrylic glass, as well as by the trade names and brands Crylux, Plexiglas, Acrylite ...

. His works have been exhibited throughout the United States and Europe and are in the permanent collections of numerous institutions including the

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 (1875–194 ...

and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Early life

Lamis was born in

Eddyville, Iowa Eddyville is a city in Mahaska, Monroe, and Wapello counties in the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 970 at the time of the 2020 census. History ''Circa'' 1839, a Sauk village was established on this site following the end of the Black ...

on September 27, 1925, and later moved to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

. As a teenager, he had a job with

MGM Studios Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...

. Lamis went on to attend

New Mexico Highlands University New Mexico Highlands University (NMHU) is a public university in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Founded in 1893, it has satellite campuses in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Farmington and Roswell. NMHU has an average annual enrollment of approximate ...

and

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. In 1954 Lamis married Esther Sackler. He is a descendant from the Dutch Lemmens family originating from the village of St. Anthonis in North Brabant, the Netherlands

Professional life

After a time teaching at

Cornell College Cornell College is a private college in Mount Vernon, Iowa. Originally the Iowa Conference Seminary, the school was founded in 1853 by George Bryant Bowman. Four years later, in 1857, the name was changed to Cornell College, in honor of iron ty ...

in Mount Vernon, Iowa, he took a position at Indiana State University in Terre Haute. Lamis taught there in the studio art and art history disciplines from 1961-1988. In 1970 Lamis was the Artist in Residence at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...

. In the early 1960s, Lamis and his

cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

sculptures were well received in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, and he was invited to join the Contemporaries Gallery. His works were featured in the annual exhibit of the

in 1964, and in 1965 his work was included in 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 ...

's exhibit '' The Responsive Eye''. Lamis was represented by the Staempfli Gallery (New York) from 1965 to 1971. During this time his work was featured across the United States. He was also a member of the

American Abstract Artists American Abstract Artists (AAA) was formed in 1936 in New York City, to promote and foster public understanding of abstract art. American Abstract Artists exhibitions, publications, and lectures helped to establish the organization as a major fo ...

Works and honors

Lamis was strongly influenced by

constructivism Constructivism may refer to: Art and architecture * Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes * Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in Russia in the 1920s a ...

, which he read about as an art student, particularly the theories of

Naum Gabo Naum Gabo, born Naum Neemia Pevsner (23 August 1977) (Hebrew: נחום נחמיה פבזנר), was an influential sculptor, theorist, and key figure in Russia's post-Revolution avant-garde and the subsequent development of twentieth-century scul ...

Antoine Pevsner Antoine Pevsner (12 April 1962) was a Russian-born sculptor and the older brother of Alexii Pevsner and Naum Gabo. Both Antoine and Naum are considered pioneers of twentieth-century sculpture. Biography Pevsner was born as Natan Borisovich P ...

and

Richard Lippold Richard Lippold (May 3, 1915 – August 22, 2002) was an American sculptor, known for his geometric constructions using wire as a medium. Life Lippold was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He studied at the University of Chicago, and graduated from ...

. Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, Lamis worked with sheet acrylic ( Poly(methyl methacrylate), more commonly called

), drawn to its

reflective Reflection is the change in direction of a wavefront at an interface between two different media so that the wavefront returns into the medium from which it originated. Common examples include the reflection of light, sound and water waves. The ' ...

and

refractive In physics, refraction is the redirection of a wave as it passes from one medium to another. The redirection can be caused by the wave's change in speed or by a change in the medium. Refraction of light is the most commonly observed phenomeno ...

qualities. Many of his works were precisely-measured, abstractly geometric cubes named ''Construction'' sequentially, such as ''Construction #31'' (1963) at the Loretta Howard Gallery, ''Construction #48'' (1964), in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum, and ''Construction #208'' (1972), at the

Swope Art Museum The Sheldon Swope Art Museum in Terre Haute, Indiana, United States, was originally funded by a bequest from Michael Sheldon Swope (1843–1929), a Civil War veteran and jeweler who lived in Terre Haute much of his adult life. Planning for the a ...

in Terre Haute, Indiana. In the late 1970s Lamis became interested in computer-generated work. He taught himself

computer programming Computer programming is the process of performing a particular computation (or more generally, accomplishing a specific computing result), usually by designing and building an executable computer program. Programming involves tasks such as anal ...

and began creating geometric two-dimensional and three-dimensional art based on geometric shapes. A representative example is the lithograph ''Untitled: Computer Generated Image'' (1987), printed by Atelier Franck Bordas and in the collections of both 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 ...

and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In addition to printed work, Lamis also created digital projections, such as ''Untitled #35'' (1998–99), part of the 1999 New York Digital Salon. One of Lamis's tools of choice for his digital art was the IBM PCjr, which, according to his wife Esther, he began using around its release in 1984 and was still working with as late as 1998, long after the particular computer model had been discontinued.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lamis, Leroy 1925 births 2010 deaths People from Eddyville, Iowa American digital artists New Mexico Highlands University alumni Columbia University alumni 20th-century American sculptors 20th-century American male artists American male sculptors Abstract sculptors