John Van AlstineBorn upstate New York in 1952, John
Van Alstine grew up in the southern Adirondacks Mountains. After attending St. Lawrence University (1970-72), Kent State University (BFA
1974) and Cornell University
(MFA 1976) he joind the faculty at the University of Wyoming, Laramie and later the University of Maryland, College Park to
teach drawing and sculpture. In 1986 he left teaching and moved to the NYC area
to pursue studio work full time. In 1987 he purchased a 19th century industrial
complex on the banks of the Sacandaga River and returned to the Adirondacks in
upstate New York where he now lives and works in the restored historic
structure. Van Alstine's work has
been exhibited widely (including over 50 solo exhibitions) in this country as
well as in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He has completed many major large
scale outdoor, site-specific commissions installing a large outdoor work for the 2008 Olympic Park, Beijing; a 35' tall piece for the new Indianapolis Airport; and a 28" high work FUNAMBULIST on the Michigan State University campus in East Lansing in June 2010. Other
notable projects include a major outdoor piece for TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY - Beijing, China. This large-scale sculpture built in Beijing in conjunction with
university's centennial celebration and installed on campus in April 2011.
He also completed a 30'h outdoor 911-SCULPTURE/MEMORIAL
sculpture using World Trade Tower steel remnants dedicated Sept. 11, 2012 in Saratoga
Springs, NY. In 2020 his work CATAPULTA, was selected from over 1200 (including
46 countries and regions) worldwide applicants and was enlarged to 5 meters and
installed in the Wuhu, China sculpture park in 2021. Van
Alstine is a recipient of many individual arts grants
and fellowships including from the Gottlieb Foundation, the Pollock-Krasner
Foundation, the Tiffany Foundation, National
Endowment for the Arts and a number of state arts grants. A 280-page hardcover book, John
Van Alstine Sculpture 1971-2018 surveying 50 years
of work published by The Artist Book foundation, was released in 2019. This
followed the 2001 release of Bones of the Earth - Spirit of
the Land, also hardcover recapping the first 25
years of his work. In 2023 a new 256-page biography by Tim Kane was released,
American
Vistas: The Life and Art of John Van Alstine
and in 2025, American
Monuments: Finding New Dimensions, 336-page
hardcover focusing on his 36 large scale public projects was published,
rounding out a trilogy of major books on his career. His work is held in many
private and public and corporate collections in this country and Europe,
Asia and the Middle East.
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