Alexander Liberman (American, born Russia, 1912-1999)

Alexander Liberman was born in 1912 in Kiev, Russia (now in the Ukraine). He studied at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris in the early 1930's. In 1941, Liberman came to New York and joined Vogue. He went on to become the Editorial Director of Condé Nast Publications in 1962. By the mid-1950s, Liberman was exhibiting his own paintings and photographs in galleries and museums around New York. In 1959 Liberman learned to weld steel and he quickly began making monumental sculpture. His highly recognizable steel sculptures are assembled from industrial objects often painted in uniform bright colors. One of his first public commissions was from the architect Philip Johnson for a pavilion at the 1963 World's Fair. His sculpture and paintings are included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; New York, and the Tate Modern, London.