Boris Gilbertson

Boris Gilbertson (1907–1982) was an American sculptor.[1]

Boris Gilbertson
American Bison (1939), limestone relief at the Stewart Lee Udall Department of the Interior Building, Washington, D.C.
Born1907
Evanston, Illinois
Died1982
Santa Fe, New Mexico
NationalityAmerican
EducationArt Institute of Chicago
One of the 11 limestone reliefs making up Birds and Animals of the Northwest (1937), Gilbertson's sculpture at the United States post office in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin

Early years

Gilbertson was born in Evanston, Illinois in 1907 to a Norwegian-Russian family and spent much of his childhood with his grandparents outside Chicago, Illinois. He began studies in physics at the University of Chicago but soon switched to art and enrolled at this School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He married Genevieve Van Metre and they made their home in Bayfield County, Wisconsin.[2]

Gilbertson moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1960. He died in 1982.

Work
Wild Ducks (1940), four-panel aluminum relief created for the New Deal post office in Janesville, Wisconsin. Installed vertically as a single unit at the original location, the panels now hang individually at the newer Janesville post office building.[3]

Much of Gilbertson's work consisted of sculpted reliefs that were commissions for public buildings, including post office buildings, courthouses and government buildings. Consequently, many are part of the General Services Administration collection and have been transferred to the holdings of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Gallery of Art.[4] His most famous work may be his reliefs in the interior of the Department of the Interior's Main Interior Building in Washington DC.

Selected public artworks

References
  1. Smithsonian American Art Museum Renwick Gallery http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artist/?id=1804
  2. Directory of Living Alumnae of Sweet Briar College, 1940, Sweet Briar College, page 75 https://archive.org/details/directoryoflivin1940unse
  3. Gates, David W. Jr (April 9, 2012). "Janesville Wisconsin Post Office". Post Office Fans. Retrieved December 14, 2022.
  4. Smithsonian American Art Museum Renwick Gallery http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=9084
  5. Engendering culture, by Barbara Melosh, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991, p. 261
  6. Engendering culture, by Barbara Melosh, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991, p. 261
  7. Engendering culture, by Barbara Melosh, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991, p. 261
  8. "Cow and Calf (completed relief sculpture for Macomb, Illinois Post Office; never installed) by Boris Gilbertson / American Art". americanart.si.edu. Retrieved September 6, 2017.
  9. "Chess Pavilion". Chicago Park District. Retrieved December 18, 2022.

Selected sources
  • White, Charlotte, Greatness in the Commonplace: The Art of Boris Gilbertson Sunstone Press, January 1, 1988
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