Phillips’ Mill Community Association Selects George R. Anthonisen as Its Honored Artist for 2021
Phillips’ Mill Community Association is pleased to announce that internationally renowned sculptor George R. Anthonisen has been named the Honored Artist for the 92nd Annual Juried Art Show.
Anthonisen’s public works in permanent collections include the U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C.; World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland; Carnegie Hall, New York; Please Touch Museum, Woodmere Art Museum, and Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia; Clark Atlanta University, Atlanta; and more than two dozen other sites, including Berman Museum at Ursinus College in Collegeville and Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, which will feature an Anthonisen retrospective in 2024.
Now aged 85, the sculptor was educated in Vermont and New York City, where he studied the figure for four years in New York at the National Academy of Design and then at the Art Students League. He cites Auguste Rodin and Augustus Saint-Gaudens as influences on his work. His figurative sculptures convey the universally relatable human spirit.
Of his own work, the sculptor says, “No matter how advanced we are technologically, we remain human beings adapting and changing to the environment. Art helps us understand ourselves and our fellow humans.”
“When you look at a George Anthonisen figure, it may have clothing that helps you date it to a decade, but what you feel deeply is how classic it is. It says something timeless. I think that is partly why the Art Committee voted overwhelmingly for George as the Honored Artist,” says Laura Womack, chair of this year’s Phillips’ Mill Juried Art Show.
For the first time in its 92-year history, the Show will be hung in the 1754 grist mill that is a National Historic Site, and it will also be available online. The Show will run from September 25 until October 31. For more details, visit phillipsmill.org.
