GEORGE SEGAL
George Segal was an American Pop artist. Though he began his career as a painter, he is best known for his iconic figurative sculptures. Easily recognizable as completely white plaster casts of people in poses and settings that mimic daily life, cinematic scenes, and historical events, his sculpture offers a haunting portrait of American life in the 20th century. The use of plaster and the life-sized scale of Segal’s figures produce an intense, realistic effect—while, at the same time, the all-white color of the plaster neutralizes and alienates his human subjects from their everyday motifs. “I pay an awful lot of attention to carving out the shape of the empty space in all my pieces,” he once said. “I pay a lot of attention to composing, stacking the pieces, putting the stuff together. And my solutions vary, depending on what I’m trying to say, what I’m talking about. It’s literal Cubism for me.” Born in New York, NY on November 26, 1924, Segal attended the academic art programs of New York University, the Pratt Institute, and Cooper Union. He would go on to receive numerous accolades for his work, including a 1992 Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award from the International Sculpture Center. Segal died in New Brunswick, NJ on June 9, 2000.
