Jim Gary (March 17, 1939 – January 14, 2006) was an American sculptor popularly known for his large, colorful creations of dinosaurs made from discarded automobile parts. These sculptures were typically finished with automobile paint although some were left to develop a natural patina during display outdoors.
He was also recognized internationally for his fine, architectural, landscape, and whimsical monumental art as well as abstracts. Sculpture and life figures by Gary often included intricate use of stained glass and his works were frequently composed of, or included, hardware, machine parts, and tools. He employed painted steel in many works, it being his metal of choice.
One of his signature works, Universal Woman, a life-sized figure of a woman composed entirely of hardware gained the admiration of renowned sculptor Jacques Lipchitz at a sidewalk show in New York in the early 1960s. Both are modernist sculptors. The Washington Post featured a zoom image from their files of this sculpture in its electronic edition of their 2006 tribute to Gary at his death. A 1971 museum exhibit of his fine art in Washington, D.C., was cited in his listing in Who Was Who in American Art, 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America, a standard library art reference.Who Was Who in American Art, 1564-1975: 400 years of artists in America, Peter Hastings Falk, editor-in-chief, Sound View Press, Madison, Connecticut, September 1999, in three volumes In 2011 the Asbury Park Press referred to Gary as an icon in the arts.
He was born in Sebastian, Florida, but lived in Colts Neck, New Jersey from early infancy and considered it his hometown. At the time of his death he was a resident of nearby Farmingdale.Fox, Margalit. Jim Gary, Sculptor Inspired by Junk, Dies at 66, The New York Times, January 19, 2006. Accessed November 27, 2007. "He was 66 and lived in Farmingdale, N.J.... James Gary was born in Sebastian, Fla., on March 17, 1939, and grew up in Colts Neck."
Jim Gary is the only sculptor ever invited to present a solo exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., which opened on April 12, 1990. In January 2006, Time stated that Gary's work "delighted kids as well as curators, including those at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, where he had an acclaimed solo show in 1990." A video tribute to Jim Gary was featured by ABC News on This Week with George Stefanopoulos on Sunday, January 22, 2006. During the same month, on January 24, 2006, the Los Angeles Times reported in an article, Jim Gary, 66; Artist Who Created Playful Dinosaur Skeletons From Car Parts, that some critics compared Jim Gary's sculptures with Pablo Picasso's famous Bull's Head sculpture, made from a bicycle seat and handlebars. The New York Times devoted half of a page to their newsworthy obituary for Gary on January 19, 2006.Fox, Margalit. Jim Gary, Sculptor Inspired by Junk, Dies at 66, The New York Times, January 19, 2006 Because of his international popularity his death was treated as news around the world Sculptor Jim Gary dead at 66, United Press International, Arts News, January 20, 2006, 14:29 GMT — an example of the wire service stories released internationally to subscribing news publications following the announcement of Gary's death and the Gary obituary ran the next day in the arts and leisure section of the globally distributed English language newspaper, the International Herald Tribune, with the title, Jim Gary, Sculptor in Metal.Fox, Margalit, Jim Gary, Sculptor in Metal, International Herald Tribune, Culture, Today in Arts and Leisure, January 20, 2006.
Biography While still at grammar school, at the age of eleven, he moved out of his parents' Colts Neck home and began making his own living.Benz, Kafi, Sculptor Jim Gary, Jim Gary Web Site by Kafi Benz, 1990 He supported himself by doing odd jobs and selling his handmade seasonal decorations. For almost a year he secretly slept in the garage of the Sterner family, a prominent Monmouth County couple in the same community, who employed him regularly. Once the family discovered this, they provided space in their home for him. He remained close to them until they died.Navarra, Tova, Jim Gary: his life and art, 1987, HFN, Inc., p. 13-14 Gary attended Freehold High School, where he developed an interest in sculpting with wood; he was inducted into the school's hall of fame in 2007.Celano, Clare Marie. "Freehold alumni join school’s hall of fame", news Transcript, April 18, 2007. Accessed January 11, 2017. "A 'man of muscle and of character,' according to the 1960 Log, he participated in gymnastics, auto mechanics, biology and chemistry clubs and graduated in 1960."Rourke, Mary. "Jim Gary, 66; Artist Who Created Playful Dinosaur Skeletons From Car Parts", Los Angeles Times, January 24, 2006. Accessed January 11, 2017. "He graduated from Freehold Regional High School, where he became interested in wood working and began to make wooden sculptures."
From junk parts, Jim Gary built what he needed to get about, first a bicycle and soon—long before he was old enough to drive on the roads legally—automobiles. He competed in gymnastics as a student. After serving in the United States Navy he taught welding and gymnastics in a federal program. During this period he developed a deft hand at welding. Shortly thereafter, applying these welding skills, he began making sculptures that he marketed as architectural elements, and showing his fine art in the New York metropolitan area.Benz, Kafi, Jim Gary's Twentieth Century Dinosaurs, Kafi Benz Productions, 2001 The admiration of welders regarding his welding skills also is documented on his official web site.
Career launched
Reassured of the caliber of his work by the compliments he received in the encounter with Lipchitz (who made a professional suggestion for a better method of preparing a stand for the life-sized torso Gary had on display), he established his gallery, Iron Butterfly, in Colts Neck featuring the works of other artists he selected as well as his own work, later moving the gallery to Red Bank.Bailey, Joseph H., Scrappy Creatures From Old Cars, National Geographic World, September 1978, cover and pages 4-7 The multitalented Gerald Lubeck was one such artist featured at Gary's fledgling gallery. Classes were offered at the gallery by Jim Gary and Virginia Laudano (who managed the gallery when Gary was on tour, as well as serving as an instructor. Virginia Laudano later became an instructor at the Art Club of Sun City Center, an art center in Florida).
Gary's fine art—such as the life-sized Universal Woman—wall units, bronze portraits and busts, and abstracts consistently won top prizes when submitted in the professional show circuits of New York and the surrounding states. He featured stained glass in many of his formal sculptures. It was often used for accent, but some life-sized figurative studies such as Stained Glass Woman with Tattoo were constructed entirely of multi-colored glass sections welded together. He was commissioned to create entire suites of rooms, integrating his sculpture into furniture he built. Commissions included ornate metal doors made to order. He sometimes used the products of clients to create fine art for their offices. Brewers especially liked to give huge seasonal wreaths he constructed from their original cans. One of his works had brass fish swimming through copper seagrass. Some of his sculptures were kinetic. Commissions from clients often asked merely for his interpretation of their favorite subject.
Examples of his many architectural sculptures include his baptismal font for Saint Benedict's Catholic Church in nearby Holmdel, a Holocaust memorial commissioned in Springfield, his life-sized nudes in metal and stained glass for the Monmouth County Opera Society, and his numerous sculptures in the park featuring his landscape design of the September 11 memorial at the Municipal Building in Colts Neck.Wall, Jeanne, Colts Neck Remembers: 25 Years Since Tragedy of 9/11 Took Five Community Members., Tap into Holmdel and Colts Neck, September 7, 2026
As he gathered parts for the unique automobiles he constructed when he was young, Jim Gary said he realized that these parts resembled anatomical structures of insects, large birds, reptiles, and especially the bones of dinosaurs. Early in his career, he began to construct sculptures of those animals by assembling the automobile parts into almost life-sized models. He used as many as eight to ten vehicles to create his large dinosaur sculptures and the unaltered parts are identifiable. Common tools became pivotal structures in some of his sculptures. Volkswagens metamorphosed into turtles and prehistoric dinosaurs.
Gary had to invent equipment to build and move the huge sculptures, creating the scaffolding, hoists, and even special vehicles that featured cranes to haul the sculptures around at his rural workshop and to place them onto trucks for transportation. He also relied upon blacksmith skills to fashion unique hand tools when no standard ones were useful for his needs.
International traveling exhibition launched These sculptures provided a unique display that became Jim Gary's hallmark by the early 1970s and soon it became the traveling exhibition, Jim Gary's Twentieth Century Dinosaurs, which appealed to toddlers through grandparents. Some of his signature sculptures in the exhibition exceeded sixty feet and Gary frequently painted them in bright colors using automobile paints. They were often transported to exhibitions on huge, open flatbed trucks, fascinating fellow travelers on the roads. Impromptu parades formed as drivers followed the dinosaurs to their destination or a stopping point, where people milled around the trucks asking questions and admiring the sculptures.
In 1979 the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia contracted with Gary for an exhibition of his sculptures.Twentieth Century Dinosaurs return to Tallahassee Museum , August 26, 2011 It is the oldest institution of its kind in the entire hemisphere. The implications of their acceptance of his work as interesting to scientists and their audiences as well as to art lovers and popular culture audiences set Gary on a course for his career that garnered invitations from all over the world through marketing targeted to diverse types of museums and venues. Steve Miller of the New York Sun noted in his news breaking obituary in 2006 Miller, Stephen, Jim Gary, 66, Made Dinosaurs From Auto Parts, New York Sun, January 17, 2006 that the museum exhibit at the academy brought national attention to Jim Gary.Benz, Kafi, Sculptor Jim Gary Memorial Fund and early tributes, Kafi Benz Productions, January–February 2006 In 1982 his sculpture was hosted by Carnegie.The Pittsburgh Post Gazette, April 16, 1982, page 25
Once asked why he built all of the enormous dinosaur sculptures, the typically quiet sculptor responded, "Because people like them." The huge crowds who flocked to his exhibits demonstrated their immense popularity. Grinning Jim Gary birds, critters, and dinosaurs have been featured in articles and on the covers of magazines from Smithsonian and Sculpture Review (publication of the National Sculpture Society) to National Geographic World (now called, National Geographic Kids) and Time. His work has been featured in textbooks, encyclopedias, educational videos, newspapers, on the Internet, and on television shows around the world. In January 2006, the Los Angeles Times reported that "one of his works, Stegosaurus, is included in Alphabet Animals, a children's book by Charles Sullivan that includes depictions of animals by John James Audubon, Alexander Calder, and Marc Chagall." All of the letters of the alphabet were taught using works of fine art through illustrations or professional photographs of artworks. "S" was taught with Gary's green dinosaur, Stegosaurus.