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Isaac Witkin (10 May 1936 – 23 April 2006) was an internationally renowned modern sculptor born in Johannesburg, South Africa. Witkin entered Saint Martin's School of Art in London in 1957 and studied under Sir Anthony Caro and alongside artists including Phillip King, William G. Tucker, David Annesley, and Michael Bolus. Witkin helped create a new style of sculpture which led to this New Generation of sculptors and their innovating abstract forms of modern sculpture reaching and changing the art world. Witkin's abstract works of usually brightly colored fiberglass or wood was noted for its "witty, Pop-Art look".
Witkin then moved from pupil to teacher, teaching at Saint Martin's for two years. He then moved to the United States. At Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont, Witkin worked with a community of artists known as "the Green Mountain boys" who either taught at the school or were part of the local arts community, including notables such as painter Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler, Larry Poons, Paul Feeley and Jules Olitski and art critic Clement Greenberg.
Witkin's works at this time were in the style of formalist abstractions, moving from the fiberglass and wood of his earlier works to heavy welded steel industrial structures with complex Cubist compositions. These were well received in America, notably during a 1966 show at the Jewish Museum, in New York City, and various other showings in that city thereafter. In 1976 Witkin was the subject of a PBS documentary, Sculpture by Isaac Witkin, directed by Neal Marshad that premiered in the United States on Public Broadcasting Service on October 19, 1976 and at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on November 7, 1976. In 1978 Witkin moved to New Jersey, becoming associated with the Johnson Atelier, Princeton, New Jersey, where he was an artist in residence.
During this time Witkin developed the style which would form the remainder of his works. Here he discovered a process of pouring molten bronze into wet sand on the ground to create organic appearing forms. By assembling these forms he engaged in "...creating language out of the behavioral flow of metal, wresting order from chaos" as he is quoted as describing the process in his obituary at The Times Online website. The remainder of his works were primarily in bronze, both poured and then cast, colored by chemicals to have a variety of patinas. However, some later work was also done in stone, though in the same style as the poured bronzes.
Through his work Witkin became an acquaintance of fellow sculptor and patron of the arts J. Seward Johnson, Jr., of the Johnson and Johnsons. This friendship allowed Witkin to persuade Johnson to buy and transform the abandoned New Jersey Fairgrounds into what became the Grounds for Sculpture Park, a open air display of sculptures in Hamilton Township, New Jersey. Several of Witkin's works are among the Grounds permanent collections. Witkins work is also included in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC, the Centre for Modern Art, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal; Fine Arts Museum, University of Sydney, Australia; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Laumier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, MO; Tate Gallery, London; and The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. His work is also displayed on his family's website, www.isaacwitkin.com.
Isaac Witkin died 23 April 2006 of a heart attack at his home in Pemberton, New Jersey.Johnson, Ken. "Isaac Witkin, 69, Innovator in Abstract Metal Sculpture, Is Dead", The New York Times, 29 April 2006. Accessed 4 February 2013. "Isaac Witkin, a sculptor whose bold, colorful abstractions helped to shake up the art scenes in London and New York in the 1960s, died on Sunday at his home in Pemberton, N.J." He is survived by his two daughters, his sizeable body of work, and the artists it has inspired.
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