Sculpture by Teens

Highland Park High School’s Sculpture II course has populated the Highland Park Public Library, 31 North Fifth Avenue, with life sized sculptures in the tradition of artist George Segal. The sculptures will be “hanging out” in the library for the summer.

“Student groups had to propose an idea prior to beginning sculpting,” Sarah Grunstein, Highland Park High School art teacher, said. “As with Segal, we wanted to create works that depicted everyday people in real situations.”

The students who worked on the figures that are in the library are tenth graders Woojin Chae, Anna Boffice and eleventh graders Ryan Klement, Shane Yin, Joey Miller, Lauren Crank, Abe Weissman, Vicky Muchinske and Tamar Winer.

The world renowned New Jersey artist George Segal, whose sculptures are fixtures at Princeton University, the Port Authority and Sheridan Square in New York, as well as many other public locations, was an art teacher in Highland Park at the Raritan Y during the 1960’s. During that decade he developed his cast life sized figures made from wrapping models in plastic bandages. The high school students, who worked in groups, duplicated his process and created 12 figures.