Artist Statement

Emil A. Sauer

After hundreds or thousands of drawings of both man-made and natural objects, including the human figure, I take plaster, steel, clay, or wax and create sculptures that are directly related to the drawings. They could be steel sculptures that represent the shapes and images of industry. They could be modern abstract plaster sculptures that resemble organic forms from nature and the human figure. Or realistic representational forms and images. I’ve also worked with materials I’ve recycled from industry, in the true sense of the word recycling – a continuous flow of materials through an industry or system. Sometimes I do a series of drawings that themselves represent a statement. I completed thirty-one life-size drawings of people’s hands, and I am presently working on a series of fifty life-size pastels of ice skaters. I am inspired by the human figure, by people’s expressions, their daily activities, as well as the elite recreational practices of special sports and dance activities. I draw people in public as well as in special settings. I normally create sculptures in series. The series represents an idea, yet each piece stands on its own. I love the tension and excitement that I experience when working with metal, plaster, and wax. The ability to create something three-dimensional in space allows me freedom of expression in the celebration of my senses of touch and sight.

Biography of Emil A. Sauer

Emil A. Sauer was born in Deming, New Mexico, in 1956. His family moved to Tempe, Arizona, and Emil’s earliest memories are of the farms behind his house – cotton, corn, and alfalfa fields. He chased jackrabbits, ran through the fields, and often walked two or three miles to visit friends. The irrigation ditches were full of water and life. Emil loved the desert landscape, the skies, and the entire environment.

At the age of seven, Emil was visiting his aunt and uncle in Pittsburgh when his mother died in Arizona. He, along with his brother, was adopted by their aunt and uncle, Teresa and Michael Rozewski, both artists who shared their love of art with him. By the time he was thirteen, they had introduced him to oxygen acetylene welding and bronze casting and had enrolled him in drawing and sculpture classes. Emil also won First Place Honorable Mention in the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society Poster Contest, an achievement that gave him a three-year scholarship to Saturday morning art classes at the Carnegie Museum, with Joseph Fitzpatrick and approximately one hundred fifty students.

Emil was accepted to Carnegie Mellon University, majoring in sculpture, minoring in drawing. Receiving the Paxton Summer Travel Award, he had the opportunity to live and do research on the Navajo Reservation of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona. The drawings and bronze sculptures that resulted from this experience were exhibited at the Ellis Gallery at Carnegie Mellon. He graduated from that university with honors and went to work as a special bell assembler for Paolo Solari in Paradise Valley, Arizona. Returning to Pittsburgh in the winter of 1981, he received from the dean of the fine arts department at Carnegie Mellon a two-year appointment as artist-in-residence in the sculpture department. During this period, he was represented by the Zenith Gallery in Pittsburgh, which sold his work to various private and corporate collectors. He returned to Arizona, rented a warehouse, and produced three public art projects in two years, winning Best of Show at the Arizona Biennial at the Tucson Museum of Art in 1984 and selling still more work.

Emil then moved to Santa Fe, created a fourth and national project to bring artwork to military bases, and started a fifth project, this time international, to acknowledge textile and garment workers. He completed this project in Pittsburgh, where he studied welding and completed a series of ninety-four life-size charcoal portraits of Pittsburgh residents.

Emil worked in seventeen companies in the United States as a certified welder. In Cinncinnati ,Ohio he created a series of welded-steel sculptures, taught continuing education classes, and met his wife Nancy on a bus. He took classes in anatomy and physiology, embryology, and microbiology. At the University of Cincinnati College Of Medicine with the permission of Dr. Richard Drake the Gross Anatomy course director , Emil drew the cadavers as a form of research into human anatomy. In Cincinnati he completed three art projects: A Torch of Whimsy (sixty-three steel sculptures), A Portrait of Cincinnati (forty-four life-size charcoal portraits), and A Show of Hands (thirty-three life-size graphite drawings of people’s hands).

Emil and Nancy embarked on some adventures – to Ann Arbor, Las Vegas (where he continued to take classes for five consecutive years in cadaver dissections and drew these dissections as a form of inquiry of human anatomy , also he practiced other forms of scientific illustration and had medical illustrations published in one book and one medical journal and then to the Chicago area. Over the last twentyfive years , Emil has created ten public art projects he is presently working on the tenth public art project an fourteen-year art project entitled “Figure Skaters” that will be a series of fifty composite life-size pastel drawings created from motion studies drawn from live skaters at ice rinks, an acknowledgement of the figure skaters for creating an expression of the beauty and passion of the human spirit , he is also creating realistic figuretive and modern abstract sculptures using bronze , clay ,plaster ,steel ,and wax and continues to practice medical illustration.

Excerpts About Emil A. Sauer

“Emil A. Sauer is a sculptor who makes use of found objects. Rattlesnake Archer, evocative of Sagittarius, with the same hefty dose of imagination that seeing the image in the constellation requires, is put together from old farm equipment, iron and weathered wood. It is a well-worn article of current faith that found objects are permissible as art. The dividing line is surely as elusive – take Picasso’s bull – as any in the quicksand semantics of the trade. But Sauer’s put-together objects work. They come off as an arresting, asymmetric composition of two fan shapes on a fulcrum rather like a creaking seesaw frozen in a pose, all subtle greys and cast shadows. A hair-fine deliberation can be sensed in the placement and relationship, part to part, of this fan of spokes and wood holding up and balancing a dissimilar other half.” Ivan Karp interviewed in Southwest Art.

“. . . the baroquely bravura bronzes of Emil Sauer (whose blue-chip sculptures drew a throng on the frigidest night of the year, poised at Zenith’s plate-glass entrance a quarter hour or so before show time like settlers at a Cimarron land rush).” Harry Schwalb, Pittsburgh.

“His metal sculptures . . . come together from objects discovered in a variety of sources – abandoned reels that once contained telephone cable, farming implements, and other things. These he welds together, his artistic vision – that particular way of seeing with which artists are endowed – coming into play. They are more pieces for an outdoor or commercial space rather than a sculpture you would put on your piano.” Kelly Walton, City Life, Tempe, Arizone

“Hanging like mobiles from the 10-foot ceiling, the sculptures look like kites. They are constructed from white tissue paper held together by stamps. A flimsiness shows in their movement at the slightest breeze. This is the first time Sauer has used paper as a medium. He is noted for his work in metals and bronze.” Bruce Trethewy, Tempe Daily News.

“What inspired this project, which is one of seven that were produced over a 12-year period in various states, was his observation of light and form created by the position of a person’s hands. The drawings on display were done over a three-month period in Cincinnati.” Bullseye, Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada.

Resume

Emil A. Sauer

Sculptor and Illustrator
3831 Euclid Ave.
Berwyn , Illinois ,60402-4056

(708)484-0197

wgeneva15@yahoo.com

Born: Deming, New Mexico, 1956

SCULPTURE

Plaster:

• Casting
• Mold making
• Investment molds

Bronze:

• Investment casting
• Patination
• Welding
• Tooling
• Finishing
• Worked in four art bronze foundries

Steel:

• Welding (5 certifications in mild steel; worked in 17 steel fabrication companies as certified welder and fabricater)
• Fabrication
• Machining and tooling with hand tools

Selected Exhibitions (*Solo Shows)

2005 *Rocket Ice Arena, Bolingbrook, Illinois.

2004-2013 , I have demonstrated in the public the creation of my figure skating drawings and exhibited them at these Illinois Ice Arena's beginning in 2004 and plan to continue this project until the end of 2018. These are the Ice arena's I have exhibited in as of 2013 , Rockey Ice Arena ,(630) 679-1700, 180 Canterbury Ln,Bolingbrook, IL. 60440 Seven Bridges Ice Arena ,(630)271-4400 ,6690 S. Route 53, Woodridge , IL. 60517, Homewood Flossmoor Park District Ice arena , 708-957-0100 ,777 Kedzie Ave Homewood, IL. 60430-4358 ,Oak Lawn Park District ice Arena, (708) 857-5173, 9320 S. Kenton Ave., Oak Lawn, IL. 60453 , Inwood Ice Arena , (815) 741-7275 ,3000 W. Jefferson St. ,Joliet ,IL. 60435 ,Winnetka Park District Ice Arena , (847) 501-2040 ,540 Hibbard road ,Winnetka ,IL. , 60093 , Darien Sportplex Ice Arena ,(630) 789-6666,451 Plainfield Rd. ,Darien, IL. 60561 , Springfield Parks Franklyn P. Nelson Recreation Center. , (217) 753-280 , 1601 N 5th St., Springfield, IL. 62702 , Center Ice of Dupage Ice arena ,(630) 790-9696 , 1N450 Highland Ave. ,Glen Ellyn, IL. 60137, Nortbrook sports center Ice Rink ,(847) 291-2993 1730 Pfingsten Rd. , Northbrook, IL. 60062 , Edge Two Ice Arena , (630) 766-8888 , 735 E Jefferson St. , Bensenville, IL. Owens Recreation Center , (309)686-3366 , 1019 W. Lake Ave. , Peoria ,IL. 61614 , Quadcity Sports Center , (563)322-5220 ,700 W. River Dr. , Davenport , IA. 52802
2012 LandmarkEducation , Chicago , IL. Office

2005 *Fountaindale Public Library District, Bolingbrook, Illinois.

2002 West Las Vegas Library, Las Vegas, Nevada.

2001 *Michael O’Callahan Federal Hospital, Las Vegas, Nevada.

2000 *James R. Dickinson Library, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada.

1997 Hyde Park Art Show, Cincinnati, Ohio. Invitational.

1995 Rutledge Gallery, Dayton, Ohio.

Olmes Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio.

A. B. Closson, Jr., Cincinnati, Ohio.

Only Artists, Cincinnati, Ohio.

1992 A Frame Come True Gallery, Torrington, Connecticut.

1989 Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Invitational.

1988 *United States Post Office, Allegheny Station, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

1987 Prism Art Gallery, Evanston, Illinois.

1986 *Coronado Naval Amphibious Base, San Diego, California.

1985 *Pueblo Alegre Mall, Taos, New Mexico.

1984 Arizona Biennial, Tucson Museum of Art. Best of Show. Invitational.

Corporate Collections

Alcoa Corporation, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

H. J. Heinz Corporation, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Blue Cross Blue Shield, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Selected Bibliography (*Reviews)

“Artist Exhibits at Hospital,” Bullseye, Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, August 31, 2001.

Scott Dickensheets, “Frolicking Frames,” Las Vegas Weekly, December 21-27, 2000.

“Art Exhibits,” Henderson View, Henderson, Nevada, October 25, 2000.

*Carrie Brunett, “From Trash to Art,” The Bulletin, Bloomfield-Garfield Corporation, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, vol. 14, no. 5, October-November 1989.

Dana Baird, “Sculptor Sauer Visits South Park,” “From Hangers to Humans,” The Official Newspaper of South Park High School, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, April 1989.

*”Artist Looks at the USPS Through a Different Eye,” Pittsburgh Postal Press, January-February 1989.

*Torie Young, “Blindfolded,” In Pittsburgh, November 29, 1988.

Bob Batz, Jr., “Shadyside Event Showcases Artistic ‘Junk’,” The Pittsburgh Press, October 20, 1988.

“Sculpturer Emil Sauer Now Working in Bellevue,” The Citizen, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, August 24, 1988.

*Jean Pishney, “Students Hang Out . . . Purely for Art’s Sake,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, April 2, 1988.

*Bab Batz, Jr., “Hanger Project Gives Sculptor’s Life a Twist,” The Pittsburgh Press, February 7, 1988.

Michael R. J. Roth, “Emil Sauer’s Art is Where He Finds It,” The New Mexican, November 14, 1986.

*Maridel Allinder, “Art from the Castoffs of Life,” Albuquerque Journal, July 27, 1986.

“Emil Sauer Exhibition,” The Gator, Coronado Naval Amphibious Base, San Diego, California, vol. 2, no. 14, May 16, 1986.

Emil Sauer, “Resourcefulness,” The Education News, Tempe, Arizona, May-June 1985.

*Bruce Trethewy, “Tempe Sculptor Embarks on Paper Postal Project,” Tempe Daily News, Tempe, Arizona, May 12, 1985.

*Kelly Walton, “Emil Sauer: Sculptor with a Message That is More Important Than His Media,” City Life, Phoenix, Arizona, April 24, 1985.

*Lynn Pyne, “Lost and Found: Ma Bell Proves to be Artist’s Dream Gal,” The Phoenix Gazette, August 4, 1984.

*Harry Schwalb, “Parcell Revisited,” Pittsburgh, April 1982.

*Harry Schwalb, “SOS [Society of Sculptors]: Sculptors Have Become an Endangered Species,” Pittsburgh, November 1981.

“Airport Lands 2 ½-Ton Sculpture,” Pittsburgh Press Roto, May 18, 1980. Mentions Emil Sauer as assistant to Ron Bennett.

Awards and Honors

1993 Safety Award. Cast-Fab Technologies, Cincinnati, Ohio.

1992 First Place. Annual Weld-Off, American Welding Society, Pittsburgh

Section.

1984 Best of Show. Arizona Biennial, Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona.

1979 Paxton Summer Travel Award, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania.

1967 First Place, Honorable Mention List. Western Pennsylvania Humane Society

Poster Contest. A three-year scholarship to Tam-O’Shanter Saturday art

classes at Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh.

Publications

Randall L. Goodman, Ophtho Notes: The Essential Guide. New York: Thieme Medical, 2003. Twenty-two illustrations by Emil A. Sauer.

Merrill Landers, Peter Altenburger, “Peripheral Nerve Injury.” Advances in Physiotherapy 2003, no. 5. Illustration by Emil A. Sauer, p. 68.

“Seated Woman with Cat,” pen-and-ink drawing. Beyond, Peabody High School, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, April 1988, p. 10.

H. J. Heinz World Headquarters Art Calendar for 1984. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Bronze, “Way Above the Clouds.”

Lectures/Public-Speaking Engagements

Interview with Joan Velar. “The Other Side.” WPGH Public Television, Channel 53, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Interview with Lynn Cullen. “Action News 4.” WTAE, Channel 4, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1988.

Lecture on bronze work. Daughters of the American Revolution, Mariemont, Ohio, Chapter. March 15, 1997.

Class, Metal Assembled Sculpture, Hot. Art Academy of Cincinnati, Fall 1995.

Class, Metal Assembled Sculpture, Cold. Art Academy of Cincinnati, Winter/Spring 1996.

Presentation on welded sculpture. American Welding Society, District 7, Cincinnati Section, May 20, 1997.

Presentation on welding of sculpture. Carnegie Mellon University Sculpture Department, March 4, 1992.

Presentation on drawing. Academy of World Languages, Cincinnati Public Schools, December 6, 1995.

Slide retrospective presentation. The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, February 17, 2005, for Professor Preston Jackson.

Education

1977 to 1980  Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honors. Major: sculpture; minor: drawing.

After graduation in 1980 , during the summer I worked as special bell assembler at Cosanti  Foundation, Paradise Valley, Arizona.

  1981 Winter  through 1982 Fall, was artist-in-residence in sculpture department at Carnegie  Mellon, assisting Professor Ron Bennett.

1982 to 2013 Completed over one hundred and five personal trainning and development courses and seminars with Werner Erhard and associates , LandmarkEducation and Landmark . These courses lasted from three days and one evening to one year .

1997 to 2013 Courses related to medical and biological illustration, as well as welding: human dissection techniques (five years), human anatomy  and physiology (I, II, and III), microbiology, human embryology,

1991 to 1992 Connelley Skill Learning Center, Pittsburgh Public Schools.

Training as a welder. Certification in welding awarded by

American Welding Society, 1993.
Welding (five certifications).