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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. These sculptures typically were finished with automobile paint although some were left to develop a natural patina. He was recognized internationally for his fine, architectural, landscape, and whimsical monumental art as well as abstracts. Sculpture and life figures by Gary often included intricate use of stained glass and his works frequently were composed of, or included, hardware, machine parts, and tools.
He was born in Sebastian, Florida, but lived in Colts Neck, New Jersey from early infancy. At the time of his death he was a resident of nearby Farmingdale.[1]
Jim Gary is the only living sculptor ever invited to present a solo exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., which opened on April 12, 1990. In January 2006, Time stated 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."[1] During the same month, on January 24, 2006 the Los Angeles Times reported in an article, Jim Gary, 66; Artist Who Created Playful Dinosaur Skeletons From Car Parts, 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 signature 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 in the early 1960s.
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Although born in Florida, Jim Gary was raised from infancy in Colts Neck, New Jersey. While still at grammar school he moved out of his parents' home at the age of eleven, making his own living doing odd jobs and selling his handmade seasonal decorations. For almost a year he secretly slept in the garage of the Sterner family, a prominent Monmouth County couple, who employed him regularly. Once the family discovered this, they 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 competed in gymnastics as a student. After serving in the United States Navy he taught welding and gymnastics in a federal program. During this period he developed a deft hand at welding. Shortly thereafter, applying these welding skills, he began making sculptures that he marketed as architectural elements, and showing his fine art in the New York metropolitan area.
Reassured of the caliber of his work by the compliments he received in the encounter with Lipchitz (who made a professional suggestion for a better method of preparing a stand for a life-sized torso Gary had on display), he established his gallery, Iron Butterfly, in Colts Neck featuring other artists he selected as well as his own work, later moving the gallery to Red Bank. The multitalented Gerald Lubeck was one such artist featured at Gary's fledgling gallery. Classes were offered at the gallery by Jim Gary and Virginia Laudano.
Gary's fine art—such as the life-sized Universal Woman—wall units, bronze portraits, and abstracts consistently won top prizes when submitted in the professional show circuits of New York and the surrounding states. He featured stained glass in many of his formal sculptures. He was commissioned to create entire suites of rooms, integrating his sculpture into furniture he built. Commissions included ornate metal doors made to order. He sometimes used the products of clients to create fine art for their offices. Brewers especially liked to give huge seasonal wreaths he constructed from their original cans. One of his works had brass fish swimming through copper seagrass. Some of his sculptures were kinetic. When other artists began to imitate his work, Gary always changed direction. Commissions from clients often asked merely for his interpretation of their favorite subject.
Examples of his many architectural sculptures include his baptismal font for St. Benedict's Catholic Church in nearby Holmdel, a holocaust memorial commissioned in Springfield, 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 said he 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. He used as many as eight to ten vehicles to create his large dinosaur sculptures [2] and the unaltered parts are identifiable. Common tools became pivotal structures in some of his sculptures. Volkswagens metamorphosed into turtles. Gary had to invent equipment to build and move the huge sculptures, creating the scaffolding, hoists, and special vehicles to haul the sculptures around at his rural workshop.
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 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, where people milled around the trucks asking questions and admiring the sculptures. In January 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."
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 [3] to National Geographic World (now called, National Geographic Kids) and Time. 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 and universities; was used as sets for films, plays, and operas; was used as exhibits for auto shows and racing events; and was presented as landscape displays in the most elegant of botanical gardens, such as Longwood Gardens on the Pierre S. du Pont estate.
The exhibition was booked for a tour of Japan that began in April 1984. The poster displayed to the right was for the opening exhibition at a national museum in Toyko that lasted through May, before making a six-month tour to museums in other Japanese cities. Posters were distributed in the cities that were included in the tour and they were displayed in buses, trains, and other public places to announce the exhibition in each museum.
This exhibition opened for Jim Gary's unique four-month solo show of his sculpture at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. on April 12, 1990 and, according to the museum director, drew record-breaking attendance to the museum.[4] 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.
A museum exhibition of his sculpture was used as the set for the 1986 film Howard the Duck and in 1993 the award-winning Nicky Silver play, Pterodactyls, featured Jim Gary sculptures in its sets when it opened in Manhattan.
When the state of New Jersey held the gala opening of its first major science museum, the Liberty Science Center, just across the harbor from lower Manhattan on January 28, 1993, the entire first floor exhibition space was devoted to what the museum director called, "the spectacular dinosaur sculptures made by... Jim Gary". [2]
A Jim Gary dinosaur is in the collection of Ripley's Believe It or Not!, which displays the sculpture in its museums and publications. They first exhibited it in their museum in Daegu, Korea.
Many fledgling nonprofit organizations raising funds to build museums and creating parks for children were able to hold an exhibition of Jim Gary's Twentieth Century Dinosaurs by covering the expense of the complicated shipping alone, as he donated his normal fees to the cause. Some were able to raise enough funds from fees paid by the visitors to the popular exhibits that, eventually, they could afford to purchase one of his dinosaurs in a permanent acquisition to their collection.
Great numbers of museums especially designed to engage children have hosted exhibitions of 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.
The last solo shows featuring the Jim Gary's Twentieth Century Dinosaurs exhibition on tour were two related ones in North Carolina in 2004. First the exhibition was displayed at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord for its Spring Extravaganza, after which they traveled to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte for an exhibition hosted by its Belk College of Business. The sculptures were featured both indoors and outside on the large campus with walking and driving tours offered to the public, [5] and the tour was extended twice.
Jim Gary is a self-taught sculptor whose works include abstracts, three-dimensional portraits, architectural, and functional pieces, as well as the celebrated collection of "Twentieth Century Dinosaurs"… [He] creates his art using the things that many of us think of as junk. Old car parts, metal washers, glass, and screws are transformed into extraordinary works through the gift of Jim’s imagination. Considered a master of metal working, Jim creates the impression of motion from cold steel and found objects. Best of all, he infuses humor and personality into his creations. Spend just a few minutes with his road runners and dinosaurs and look at the expressions on their faces – you will find yourself naming the creatures and wanting to take them home!... -- Dinosaurs on Campus! - guide for walking tour of the 2004 exhibit at Belk College of Business, UNCC
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.[3]
He was a popular figure for lectures about his work and was booked as a speaker by diverse groups, ranging from art and cultural associations and institutions to those focused upon automobiles, engineering, science, and trades such as welding. Coverage was frequent by the mass media, both published and broadcast, not only for openings of exhibitions of his work, but as a featured sculptor whose work remained interesting and popular with the public.
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.
As reported by Karen DeMasters in The New York Times on December 16, 2001 in Hark, the Pterodactyl's Wing, every year Jim Gary 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.[6] Lights were strung on the sculptures to delineate the structure of each dinosaur. During these displays Gary gave lectures and led discussions about his work. In 2005, Gary became too ill to manage his traditional and festive seasonal event, choosing instead to display a few works at a gallery in a nearby community.
Gary was quite welcoming to people who stopped by his home to admire the sculptures that he always kept among his well-tended gardens. It was not unusual for him to invite visitors to sit down and chat for a while.
In a tribute to the sculptor published on February 14, 2006 in The Guardian, its author coined a new word, Garysauruses, a neologism to describe the dinosaurs created by Jim Gary.[7] The memorials, tributes, and obituaries for Jim Gary were numerous, the international recognition reflecting the widespread appeal of his work. Roth's apt name for Gary's dinosaur sculptures has begun to be used by others.
Early in his career, the invention of neologisms arose for Gary's dinosaurs. Chevrosaurus was among the first when it was published in the New York Times in May 1979 [4] Another New York Times writer described one of Gary's works as a Diner-saurus, because when the green Stegosaurus was not traveling on exhibition, he usually displayed it at the diner he frequented. None of these stuck for long without the Gary name as part of the new words, as Roth's clever one does in his tribute.
The Internet Movie Database has a listing for sculptor Jim Gary because a museum exhibition of Jim Gary's Twentieth Century Dinosaurs was used as a set for a film released in 1986.
   | Sculptor Jim Gary - Kafi Benz Productions :: Javascript & Cookies Required! |
| | Jim Gary, Sculptor Inspired by Junk, Dies at 66 - The New York Times > Log In |
| | Jim Gary; Created Art From Castoff Auto Parts - Jim Gary; Created Art From Castoff Auto Parts - washingtonpost.com |
| | Jim Gary, 66; Artist Who Created Playful Dinosaur Skeletons From Car Parts - Jim Gary, 66; Artist Who Created Playful Dinosaur Skeletons From Car Parts - Los Angeles Times |
| | ''Jim Gary'' by Andrew Roth; Tuesday February 14, 2006; The Guardian; United Kingdom; guardian.co.uk - Obituary: Jim Gary | World news | The Guardian |
| | Currents; Dinosaurs To Scare A Dinosaur by Yanick Rice Lamb; January 7, 1993; The New York Times - CURRENTS; Dinosaurs To Scare A Dinosaur - The New York Times |
| | itsnewjersey.com Jim Gary's Dinosaurs - LostinJersey.com Your guide to the weird places that make this state great |
| | Belk College of Business. - UNC Charlotte :: Belk College :: Home |
| | itsnewjersey.com Jim Gary's Dinosaurs - LostinJersey.com Your guide to the weird places that make this state great |
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