-
Artist: David Adickes
Sculptor David Adickes is known for a major project titled Presidents Park in Williamsburg, Virginia, where he created 42 portraits bust of American presidents. Each sculpture is twenty feet tall, and their size was the subject of much protest and controversy. However, a court ruling allowed them to stay.
Now mainly known as a creator of giant sculpture, Adickes spent most of his professional life teaching, painting, and creating small bronzes. A commission for Houston's Performing Art Center in 1982 marks the beginning of his giant sculpture design. After the 36-foot tall cellist called the Virtuoso in a cubist style, he created a number of abstract works, including a giant cornet for the jazz stage at the 1984 World's Fair in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Circa 1994 he finished a giant statue of Sam Houston, first President of Texas, followed by his 42 statue tribute to United States Presidents.
Adickes has degrees in mathematics and physics which serve him well in the engineering of his works. Working on a giant sculpture series which includes the Beatles, and he hopes to end with a 280-foot tall cowboy statue, Adickes is also painting again.
Born in Huntsville, Texas, David Adickes earned his undergraduate degree in physics and mathematics from Sam Houston State College (now University). The summer after graduation, he attended the Kansas City Art Institute and realized that art was what he really wanted to do. Adickes used his G.I. Bill to study painting in Paris with modern master, Fernand Leger. He returned to Houston and began painting full-time.
In 1983, he was commissioned to make his first monumental sculpture, Virtuoso, which now resides at the Lyric Center in downtown Houston. Adickes also created the 76-foot tall figure of Sam Houston that stands on Interstate 45 just south of Huntsville. The Winds of Change, an 8 foot bronze of President George Bush for the Bush Presidential Library at TAMU.
Tanya Meade . General Manager . 214-960-0031
The Warehouse @ Collinwood 682-255-5525
The Shafer Collection / thewarehouseatcollinwood.com