Peter Woytuk:
Peter Woytuk has a range of styles that explore the sense bring a sense of reality to his work. Over the years he has experimented with life size sculpture. He was described by the International Herald Tribune as “the greatest animal sculptor of the Western world in the closing years of the 20th century.” Raised by an architect father and textile artist mother, he was influenced on frequent trips to Europe seeking out art and architecture with his parents.
Born in St Paul, Minn. Woytuk holds a bachelors if fine arts degree from Kenyon College in Gambier, Oh (1980), and apprenticed with sculptor, Philip Grausman.
Based out of Wassaic, NY, he has held one person shows at Kenyon College; Olivet College, Olivet, Minn; Paris-New York-Kent Gallery, Kent Conn.; Owings-Dewey Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM; and Philippe Staib Gallery, Bankiok, Thailand.
Besides The Elephant Group found here at the North Carolina Zoo, other commissions have included Peace Globe, a 16-ft fabricated globe for the World Peace Prayer Society in Tokyo, and Singular Raven for the Weantinogue Land Trust in Litchfield, Conn.
His work can also can be found in the collections of Dean Witter Reynolds in New York, the Children’s Hospital and the American Red Cross in Bankok, the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut, Kenyon College in Ohio, the Weisman Museum in Minneapolis. Select private collections include The Gund Collection and the Tim Curry Collection.
The Elephant Group (1998) Peter Woytuk Bronze Sponsored by Bob and Bonnie Meeker
The Zoo’s largest sculpture greets visitors at the main entrance. Designed to signify arrival and generate feelings of excitement and anticipation, this arrangement of life-sized elephant sculptures creates an environment where the negative space and the relationship between pieces is as important as the individual sculptures themselves. Distilled into stylized forms, the sculpture results in a rhythmic interplay of concave and convex masses.
Cast in Shanghai, they were shipped through Charleston, SC on two flatbed trucks. The large adult male, two females and a young male range in weight from 6,000 to 8,000 pounds, the largest is 11’ft 9” tall and 22’ long from extended trunk to tail.
Courtesy of:
www.artsy.net/artist/peter-woytuk
Artist Photo: Sorrelsky.com
Zoo and animal: The North Carolina Zoo, Tamara Hill
