Sculptor

Elizabeth Catlett, 96, a sculptor and printmaker renowned for her dignified portrayals of African American and Mexican women who was barred from her home country for political activism, died Monday in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where she had lived since 1976. Born in Washington, D.C., Ms. Catlett moved to Mexico in 1946, became friends with great Mexican muralist Diego Rivera and others in his circle, and married Mexican artist Francisco Mora. She became known for her commitment to winning greater rights for black people, women and workers in the United States and her adopted country.

Abstract sculptor Christopher Wilmarth, 44, whose works are exhibited in major museums around the country, has died after apparently hanging himself in his studio-apartment, police said. His body was discovered by his wife Thursday at their Brooklyn residence, said a police spokesman, Detective Joseph McConville. She said he had been under treatment for depression. He left no note, authorities said. Mr. Wilmarth's work is part of the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, the Cooper Union Library and other museums and galleries in New York.

Je Duck Park, a young ceramic sculptor from Seoul, South Korea, is featured at the University of the Arts, his alma mater, in a solo exhibit organized by his former ceramics instructor, Bill Daley. A recent recipient of a master of fine arts degree from Michigan's Cranbrook Academy of Art, Park displays work he did this summer after returning here to the university's ceramic studio. Featured are his investigations of the structural and pictorial aspects of three-dimensional form and the viewer's relationship to those aspects.

William Turnbull, 90, a highly regarded British sculptor who drew inspiration from primitive forms, died Thursday, according to the public relations firm Bolton & Quinn, which is promoting a forthcoming show of his work. The cause of death was not announced. Mr. Turnbull's works were frequently extremely simple shapes, suggesting masks or totem poles. He was exhibited at the prestigious Hayward, Serpentine, and Tate Galleries in London and the Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco. British sculptor Anthony Gormley described Mr. Turnbull as "a radical modernist who recognizes that sculpture is of its nature archaic.

Bruce Kelvin said he never liked attending art class when he was a student at Springfield High School. And he never thought he had any talent as an artist. Today, Kelvin, 37, devotes all of his time to his craft as a metal sculptor. Kelvin spends his days in a wheelchair in his Erdenheim studio, sculpting copper, brass and other metals to weld into wall hangings for homes and offices. Eight years ago, during a trip to a Virginia art show, Kelvin was the victim of a hit-and-run car accident.

Francis Wharton Stork, 89, of Wynnewood, a sculptor whose work is in galleries and private collections, died Sunday at Cottage Hospital in Woodsville, N.H. He was visiting his niece, Deborah Fisher Regan, in Bath, N.H., when he was taken ill. For more than 60 years, Mr. Stork sculpted in many media, including marble, onyx, bronze, walnut, oak and plaster. His work is exhibited at the Woodmere Art Museum, the Athenaeum of Philadelphia, and the Tyler Art Museum. Mr. Stork was born in Philadelphia, a great-great-nephew of Joseph Wharton, for whom the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania was named.

Aurielio Regis Milione, 77, a sculptor and master stone carver who left the indelible marks of his vanishing craft on buildings and statuary across Philadelphia and around the country, died Tuesday at his home, in Largo, Fla. He lived for many years in Springfield, Delaware County. Mr. Milione, who was known as Regis, learned much of his art from his father, Louis, and was respected both as a sculptor and as a stone carver. He was a major figure in restoration work around the country.

Cynthia Porter is a Philadelphia sculptor who never comes on heavy. The absorbingly calm three-dimensional tableaux in her show at Swarthmore College share an overall lightness. Vertically hanging assemblages of loosely linked small pieces of wood and metal occupy seemingly changeless spaces as they are wafted ever so slightly with changing air currents. In warm, often intimate work, the artist has tried to preserve the personal quality of her inspiration - fossilized human, animal, tree and coral forms - while at the same time expanding into something like myth.

IT SURE beats a pan of paella. Although there's nothing wrong with this rice dish, often served with seafood on a large pan, Maximillian was a better choice. Robert Phillips, a prominent local sculptor who worked in iron, convinced the owners of the Striped Bass restaurant at 15th and Walnut streets in 1994 that a fish named Maximillian would be a better choice as a decorative piece to hide the oven's hood. And what a fish! Bob Phillips' fish is an amazing work of art, 16 feet long, 7 feet wide, 4 feet thick and weighing about 400 pounds.

Philadelphia sculptor Phoebe Adams has been named sculptor-in-residence for 1986-87 at Chesterwood in Stockbridge, Mass., the 125-acre estate that was the summer home of sculptor Daniel Chester French (1850-1931). The program is administered by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in cooperation with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which runs Chesterwood. An undisclosed monthly stipend will allow Adams to spend three months living and working in the studio at Chesterwood, where French, creator of the Abraham Lincoln figure in the Lincoln Memorial, made many of his monumental works.

When sculptor Darla Jackson found herself creating castings of her life-size rabbit sculptures in her upstairs bathroom - mixing plaster in the tiny sink, dripping soapy residue on her toothbrush, and spilling the mess on the floor - she knew things had to change. Jackson thought there must be other artists out there trying to create in rowhouse bathrooms and basements, praying they didn't ruin yet another rug, or worse, set the house on fire. She dreamed of creating a space where fellow sculptors could use specialized machinery, share inspiration, and work in a safe environment.

New art often comes with a backstory, which can be useful in helping identify a point of entry into otherwise-enigmatic work. The genesis of Daniel Arsham's sculpture at the Fabric Workshop and Museum is particularly dramatic, to the point where the story implants itself so firmly in the viewer's consciousness that it biases one's evaluation of the artist's efforts. Arsham makes sure this happens by including in his installation, "Reach Ruin," a sculpture incorporating sound, light, and music that re-creates a cataclysmic event and his enduring memory of it. The event was Hurricane Andrew, one of the most powerful and destructive storms in U.S. history, which struck Florida in late August 1992.

William Turnbull, 90, a highly regarded British sculptor who drew inspiration from primitive forms, died Thursday, according to the public relations firm Bolton & Quinn, which is promoting a forthcoming show of his work. The cause of death was not announced. Mr. Turnbull's works were frequently extremely simple shapes, suggesting masks or totem poles. He was exhibited at the prestigious Hayward, Serpentine, and Tate Galleries in London and the Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco. British sculptor Anthony Gormley described Mr. Turnbull as "a radical modernist who recognizes that sculpture is of its nature archaic.

Conan (11 p.m., TBS) - Mindy Kaling; micro-sculptor Willard Wigan; Barry Rothbart. The Colbert Report (11:30 p.m., COM) - Political commentator Andrew Sullivan. The Daily Show With Jon Stewart (Midnight, COM) - Election news and results analysis from the team.  

JOE FRAZIER beat Muhammad Ali. March 8, 1971, Madison Square Garden. Knocked him down in the 15th round with a brutal left hook that left Ali's jaw as lumpy as a bag of peanuts. It was the fight of the century, pick a century. And now, fight fans will get a chance to watch it again, at City Hall, at $1,000 a pop, the proceeds going to erect a statue honoring Frazier, the winner and heavyweight champion of the world. "Jerry Perenchio, the promoter of that fight, owned the exclusive rights to the film," explained attorney Richard Handley, who is the liaison between the city, Xfinity Live!

IT SURE beats a pan of paella. Although there's nothing wrong with this rice dish, often served with seafood on a large pan, Maximillian was a better choice. Robert Phillips, a prominent local sculptor who worked in iron, convinced the owners of the Striped Bass restaurant at 15th and Walnut streets in 1994 that a fish named Maximillian would be a better choice as a decorative piece to hide the oven's hood. And what a fish! Bob Phillips' fish is an amazing work of art, 16 feet long, 7 feet wide, 4 feet thick and weighing about 400 pounds.

Angelo Di Maria knew about the plane flying over State College, Pa., on Tuesday, the one carrying a banner threatening, "Take the statue down or we will. " His statue. Di Maria sculpted the seven-foot, 900-pound bronze statue of Joe Paterno that stands, however tenuously, outside Beaver Stadium. "Almost surreal," Di Maria said in an interview Tuesday afternoon. "It's snowballing into an incredible thing. " The 65-year-old native of Sicily, who lives outside Reading in Mount Penn, is philosophical about what may happen to the monument to the late Pennsylvania State University coach, unveiled in 2001.

Barton Lidice Benes, 69, a New York sculptor who worked in materials that he called artifacts of everyday life, expanded his definition of everyday as he went. He used the everyday mementos of childhood in his early work, and later made sculptures from chopped-up, everyday U.S. cash (purchased pre-shredded from the Federal Reserve). When friends started dying of AIDS, and Mr. Benes himself tested HIV-positive, he began working in everyday materials of the epidemic - pills and capsules, intravenous tubes, HIV-infected blood, and cremated human remains.

Elizabeth Catlett, 96, a sculptor and printmaker renowned for her dignified portrayals of African American and Mexican women who was barred from her home country for political activism, died Monday in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where she had lived since 1976. Born in Washington, D.C., Ms. Catlett moved to Mexico in 1946, became friends with great Mexican muralist Diego Rivera and others in his circle, and married Mexican artist Francisco Mora. She became known for her commitment to winning greater rights for black people, women and workers in the United States and her adopted country.

JOE HAND IS going to build a statue of Joe Frazier. No ifs, ands or buttresses about it. Going to hire a sculptor, approve a design, carve it, bronze it, erect it on a lovely spot near Xfinity Live. Unveil it on Jan. 12, 2013. (Maybe Michael Buffer growling, "Let's get ready for humble. ") "We are going to celebrate Joe's birthday right there," Hand said emphatically, ignoring the can't-be-done whispers. He's going to raise $200,000, choose a sculptor, agree on a pose, get it built, bronzed and fastened to a handsome marble slab, all in 310 days?