Jim Gary

Jim Gary (March 17, 1939 – January 14, 2006) was an American sculptor popularly known for his large, colorful creations of dinosaurs made from discarded automobile parts and recognized internationally for his fine, architectural, landscape, and whimsical monumental art. He was born in Sebastian, Florida, but lived in Colts Neck, New Jersey from early infancy.

Gary is the only living sculptor ever invited to have a solo show at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. Time Magazine stated in January 2006 that Gary's work "delighted kids as well as curators, including those at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, where he had an acclaimed solo show in 1990." During the same month, the Los Angeles Times reported that some critics compared Jim Gary's sculptures with Pablo Picasso's famous bull's head made from a bicycle seat and handlebars.

One of his works, a life-sized figure of a woman composed entirely of hardware gained the admiration of renowned sculptor Jacques Lipchitz at a sidewalk show in New York City in the early 1960s.

Biography

Although born in Sebastian, Florida, Jim Gary was raised in Colts Neck, New Jersey from infancy. During grammar school he moved out of his parents’ home, making his own living doing odd jobs. For almost a year he secretly slept in the garage of the Sterner family, a prominent Monmouth County couple, who employed him regularly. Once discovered, this family—he adopted—provided space in their home for him. He remained close to them until they died.

From junk parts, Jim Gary built what he needed to get about, first a bicycle and soon—long before he was old enough to drive on the roads legally—automobiles. He also developed a deft hand at welding. He competed in gymnastics as a student. After serving in the United States Navy he taught welding and gymnastics in a federal program. Shortly thereafter, applying his welding skills, he began making sculptures that he marketed for architectural elements and showing his fine art in the New York City metropolitan area.

Early career

At a sidewalk show in New York City the renowned sculptor Jacques Lipchitz admired Jim Gary’s work and made a professional suggestion for a better method of preparing a stand for a life-sized torso Jim had on display. Reassured of the caliber of his work, Jim Gary established a gallery, Iron Butterfly, featuring his work and that of other artists he selected, initially in Colts Neck and later, in Red Bank, New Jersey. The multitalented Gerald Lubeck was one of the other artists whose work was featured at the fledgling gallery in Colts Neck. Classes were offered by Jim Gary and Virginia Laudano. Sculptor Jim Gary’s fine art, such as the life-sized Universal Woman, wall units, bronze portraits, and his abstracts consistently won top prizes when submitted in the professional show circuits of New York City and the surrounding states. Stained glass was featured in many of his formal sculptures. He was commissioned to create entire suites of rooms, integrating his sculpture into furniture he built. He sometimes used the products of clients to create fine art for their offices. Beer manufacturers especially liked to give huge seasonal wreaths he constructed of their original cans. Brass fish swam through copper seagrass. Some of his sculptures were kinetic. When other artists began to imitate his work, Jim Gary always changed direction. Commissions from clients often merely asked for his interpretation of their favorite subject.

Examples of his many architectural sculptures include his baptismal font for St. Benedict’s Catholic Church in Holmdel, New Jersey, his life-sized nudes in metal and stained glass for the Monmouth Opera Society, and the September 11 Memorial at the Municipal Building in Colts Neck.

As he gathered parts for the automobiles he constructed when he was young, Jim Gary had realized that these parts resembled anatomical structures of insects, large birds, reptiles, and especially the bones of dinosaurs. Early in his career, he began to construct sculptures of those animals by assembling the automobile parts into almost life-sized models. Common tools became pivotal structures in some of his sculptures. Volkswagens metamorphosed into turtles. He had to invent equipment to build and move the huge sculptures, creating the scaffolding, hoists, and vehicles to haul the sculptures around at his rural workshop.

International traveling exhibition launched

These sculptures provided a unique display that became Jim Gary’s hallmark, the traveling exhibition of Jim Gary’s Twentieth Century Dinosaurs, which appealed to toddlers through grandparents. Some of his signature sculptures exceeded sixty feet and Jim Gary frequently painted them in bright colors using automobile paints. They often were transported to exhibitions on huge, open flatbed trucks, fascinating fellow travelers on the roads. Impromptu parades formed as drivers followed the dinosaurs to their destination or a stopping point, and people milled around the trucks asking questions and admiring the sculptures. In January of 2006, the Los Angeles Times reported that “one of his works, ‘Stegosaurus,’ is included in ‘Alphabet Animals,’ a children's book by Charles Sullivan that includes depictions of animals by John James Audubon, Alexander Calder, and Marc Chagall.” and that “some critics compared Gary's scrap-metal creatures with Picasso's famous bull's head made from a bicycle seat and handlebars.”

Once asked why he built all of the enormous dinosaur sculptures, the typically quiet sculptor responded, “Because people like them.” The huge crowds who flocked to his exhibits demonstrated their immense popularity. Grinning Jim Gary birds, critters, and dinosaurs have been featured in articles and on the covers of magazines from Smithsonian and Sculpture Review to National Geographic World. His work has been featured in textbooks, educational videos, newspapers, on the Internet, and on television shows—around the world.

After the display became the permanent Jim Gary’s Twentieth Century Dinosaurs exhibition, it traveled internationally to museums for fine art or natural history; to universities where sciences and arts were taught; used as sets for movies, plays, and operas; as exhibits for auto shows and racing events; and presented as landscape displays in the most elegant of botanical gardens, such as Longwood Gardens on the du Pont estate. Commissioned work and fees for the exhibitions of his work that were so heavily attended became his mainstay. His gallery was closed in favor of marketing through his studio. Selected works offered for sale sometimes accompanied the permanent exhibition that was booked for displays, shows, and exhibits. The traveling exhibition is destined to be displayed in a permanent home where Jim Gary's Twentieth Century Dinosaurs will remain open to the public.

A Jim Gary dinosaur is in the collection of Ripley’s Believe It or Not! which displays the sculpture in its museums and publications. Great numbers of museums especially designed to engage children have hosted exhibitions of Jim Gary's sculpture. Generations have grown up with vivid memories of his work and his encouragement for them to follow his dynamic example. Astounding attendance records demonstrated a cross-cultural popularity in Australia, China, and Japan.

Time Magazine stated in January of 2006 that his work “delighted kids as well as curators, including those at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, where he had an acclaimed solo show in 1990.” Jim Gary is the only living sculptor ever invited to have a solo show at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, yet Mr. Gary always took the time to make appearances at schools to show children how he made his sculptures and to encourage them to pursue their own creative talents. Along with typical pieces of his work he also provided small sculptures made of materials familiar to children at school lectures. He personally answered every letter sent to him by a youngster.

Annual free display and lectures

As reported by Karen DeMasters in the New York Times on December 16, 2001 in "Hark, the Pterodactyl's Wing" every year he provided hot chocolate, coffee, and cookies to those visiting an illuminated display of his sculpture, open to the public at his home, to celebrate the holidays in December. During the displays Jim Gary gave lectures and led discussions about his work. In 2005 Jim Gary became too ill to manage his traditional and festive seasonal event, choosing instead to display the exhibition at a gallery in a nearby community.

References

From the Magazine | Notebook, Milestone; Died. Jim Gary, 66 Time Magazine, January 30, 2006; page 21.

External links

The official Sculptor Jim Gary web site.
Kafi Benz Productions: Jim Gary's Twentieth Century Dinosaurs
Kafi Benz Productions: artist Jim Gary — news, links, and more photographs
Kafi Benz Productions: Sculptor Jim Gary Memorial Fund and tributes
itsnewjersey.com Jim Gary's Dinosaurs - large photographs of dinosaur sculptures
Hairy Museum of Natural History January 17, 2006: Sculptor Jim Gary dies
Jim Gary; Created Art From Castoff Auto Parts. Washington Post/Association Press, January 19, 2006. see zoom photograph of life-sized sculpture of a woman created out of hardware
Jim Gary, 66; Artist Who Created Playful Dinosaur Skeletons From Car Parts Los Angeles Times, January 24, 2006.