About Rob Fisher

ABOUT ROB FISHER SCULPTURE, LLC

Rob Fisher Sculpture LLC

ROB FISHER SCULPTURE, LLC is the company that Sculptor Rob Fisher formed in the 1990’s. His family and studio staff are continuing to operate the studio, completing and installing the works that were in progress at the time of his sudden death on September 13, 2006.

Rob Fisher Sculpture, LLC is also producing new artworks in aluminum, stainless steel, light and color that honor Rob’s artistic legacy and are inspired by his design direction, aesthetic, and creative sensibility.

True Fisher, continues her work with the office management, while Talley Fisher, their daughter, is now the lead artist. Their son, Brett, directs the websites and consults on aesthetic questions. Talley had worked with her father for years and has his artistic vision and creative intellect. She produced many of his computer images and worked with Rob on numerous design proposals, as well as fabrication and installation. She has a master’s degree in Landscape Architecture from the University of Oregon and is skilled at concept development, computer simulations and presentations, and collaboration with architects, designers, fabricators, engineers and installers.

ABOUT ROB FISHER 1939 - 2006

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Rob Fisher grew up in Shaker Heights, a suburb of Cleveland, and exhibited early talents in both science and art. He went to MIT on scholarship where he studied science, engineering, visual arts and the humanities with such notable professors as Aldous Huxley and Gyorgy Kepes, the principal philosopher of the art and technology movement of which Fisher is now a part. Awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in 1961-62, he studied design in Scandinavia and was profoundly influenced by the way in which artists and their efforts were integrated into the culture. The following year was spent in Rome where Fisher studied art and architecture of the past and present. There, Fisher discovered the work of Carlo Scarpa, one of Italy’s most acclaimed contemporary artist/architects, particularly relevant to Fisher’s growing interest in the integration of art and architecture. He traveled to Venice to meet Scarpa and studied many of the modern master’s projects first-hand.

While pursuing a Master’s Degree in Industrial Design at Syracuse University, Fisher
co-authored a seminal book on visual design, "The Design Continuum: An Approach to Understanding Visual Form" (VNR 1966). Fisher has lectured and exhibited extensively throughout the US, Europe and the Far East. His work is included in a number of private and museum collections including Grounds for Sculpture, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha and the Museum of Outdoor Arts, Engelwood, Colorado.

Fisher’s academic career included positions at Colorado State University, University of Illinois and Penn State where he was Artist-in-Residence at both the College of Engineering and the School of Communications. Fisher was appointed Senior Research Artist and Fellow at the Studio for Creative Inquiry, Carnegie Mellon University from 1993 - 2003. He was Artistic Director and co-producer of two interactive planetarium science programs funded by the National Science Foundation -- “Into the Living Cell” and "Gray Matters: The Brain Movie".

Fisher’s interest in larger scale pieces led in 1979 to his innovative use of computer visualization to model his increasingly complex objects. Fisher is considered a pioneer in the application of the computer to art. Among his earlier works, all of which have generated considerable press, are "Olympos", an architectural light sculpture illumination for the 1996 Centennial Olympics in Atlanta; the 1986 work, "Osaka Skyharp" in Japan; “Northern Lights”, a 70 foot high suspended sculpture for the Playboy Casino in 1981; and "Galaxy", a recently restored 86 foot high sculpture in Boston in 1983, all considered seminal examples of the use of the computer in art.

In 2000, Rob Fisher was awarded the major public art commission for the Philadelphia International Airport Arrivals Hall. His winning artwork, “American Dream” was selected by a jury from over 320 entries from around the country and the commission is one of the largest ever granted in the Philadelphia region.

Since then, he completed a monumental 40’ high exterior kinetic sculpture, “Dihedrals”, for Gateway Exchange in Columbia, MD; an 80’ wide innovative suspended sculpture, “Slice of Life,” for AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals in Wilmington, DE based on the form of a cell; ”Sea Creatures” suspended sculptures at the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in Fort Pierce, FL and a 70’ high suspended sculpture, “Reigning Knowledge”, for the National Education Association in Washington, D.C. Other sculptures installed in 2000-2002 are sited at the Penn State Applied Research Lab; the Penn Stater Conference Center; Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ; Presidential Towers in Chicago, IL; ELG Haniel Metals in Pittsburgh, PA; Jackson National Life in Lansing, MI; and Booz Allen Hamilton, McClean, VA.

Recent suspended art works are found at Horizon Suite Hotel, Hong Kong: Christ Clinic, Cincinnati, Ohio; WakeMed Hospital, Cary, North Carolina; North Colorado Medical Center, Greeley,CO; Piedmont Natural Gas headquarters, Charlotte,NC: Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Eugene OR.

Fisher was on the Executive Board of Directors of the International Sculpture Center and was Program Chair of the 19th International Sculpture Conference held in Pittsburgh in 2001. He serves as a Visual Arts Panelist for the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts.

Rob Fisher was married with two children. His primary residence was in Bellefonte, PA where he lived in an 1891 Victorian home. His sculpture studio remains in a nearby historic mill, where his family and staff continue his artistic legacy and aesthetic direction, under Rob Fisher Sculpture, LLC. During the summer and fall, the studio moves to “Glen Union,” along the west branch of the Susquehanna River. In this abandoned logging town, the Fisher Studio will create unique and complex artworks, using a one-room school house and century-old barns as studios.

Additional information and images can be found in the portfolio section of www.sculpture.org.