Roger Phillips

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Roger Phillips was born in New York City in 1930. His education as a metalsmith began on Long Island at age 12 as a blacksmith's helper. He has worked in metal ever since. His first exposure to art was at the Woodstock Country School in Vermont where he studied with Francis Foster, a teacher from Black Mountain College who ran his classes on the Bauhaus model. Phillips graduated from Bard College in 1953. He studied drawing and design at the New School and metal fabrication at the Jewish Museum in New York. He is a past president of the Artist-Blacksmith's Association of North America. His studio/workshop is located in Stuyvesant, New York about 100 miles north of New York City. A constructivist, Phillips is in private and public collections throughout the United States. A large portion of his work is kinetic, made of stainless steel and brightly painted aluminum plate. Many pieces are commissioned for specific outdoor sites. Maquettes for some sculptures have been replicated in small editions. Phillips has showed at Marisa del Re Gallery, New York, NY; The Monte Carlo Biennale, Monaco; Roche Court, Salisbury England, Courtesy of the New Arts Centre, London; Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; Hudson Opera House, Hudson NY; Chesterwood, Stockbridge, MA; Simon Gallery, Morristown, NJ; Weber Fine Art, Scarsdale, NY, Greenwich, CT and Chatham, NY; James Graham and Sons, New York, NY; Morgan Lehman Gallery, Lakeville, CT; Carol Craven Gallery, Vineyard Haven, MA. Permanent public and corporate installations are: the Steinberg Conference Center, Wharton, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA; The American College, Bryn Mawr, PA; Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; Brown Rudnick Berlack Israels, LLP, New York, NY, Goizueta Business School, Emory University, Atlanta, GA; Egelston Children’s Hospital, Emory University, Atlanta, GA; Schiffer Publishing Corp, Atglen, PA; Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY.; George Washington Carver Houses, 100th Street and Madison Avenue, New York, NY. His work can be seen at James Graham & Sons, 32 East 67th Street in New York City. The spirit of the work is captured in this passage from Plato's Philebus Dialog: "By beauty of shapes I do not mean, as most people would suppose, the beauty of living figures or of pictures... I mean straight lines and circles, and shapes, plane or solid, made from them by lathe, ruler and square. These are not, like other things, beautiful relatively, but always and absolutely." Catalogue Essay - Roger Phillips, June 2005 Shakespeare says the object of art is 'to hold a mirror up to nature'. I believe this, but that raises the question: what part of nature does constructivist art hold the mirror up to? I have always been fascinated by grids and repetition. They have a sacred quality. I think they echo the most fundamental aspect of life: the ability of nature to replicate itself and create order. In my non-kinetic work the grids are obvious. In the kinetic pieces the rigid stainless steel 'frame' is minimally grid-like. It is a strong environment whose existence allows the discs or squares or triangles to move in their own orbit.

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