Gary Tillery | |
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| Born | August 6, 1947 |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Writer, Sculptor |
Gary Tillery is an American writer and artist known for his biographies focusing on the spiritual lives of famous figures, and for his public sculptures. His 2009 book, The Cynical Idealist, was named the official book of the 2010 John Lennon Tribute in New York City, [1] and he created the centerpiece sculpture of the Chicago Vietnam Veterans Memorial, dedicated in 2005. [2]
Gary Glenn Tillery was born in Phoenix, Arizona on August 6, 1947, the son of a farmer who had brought the family west from Oklahoma after they survived a tornado. [3]
The intensifying Vietnam War interrupted his higher education. He joined the United States Air Force and was deployed to Tan Son Nhut Air Base, near Saigon. [4] His arrival happened to coincide with the "Mini-Tet" Offensive of May 1968, the month that proved to be the deadliest of the entire war for U.S. forces. [5] During his first few weeks, the base came under repeated attack by 122mm rockets and mortar fire. [4] His experiences in the war would serve as background for his book Darkling Plain, an experimental novel constructed of interlinked short stories. [6]
After his military service, Tillery returned to Phoenix and attended Arizona State University. He received a bachelor's degree in Latin American Studies in 1972, and went on to Thunderbird School of Global Management, where in 1973 he earned a master's degree in International Management.
After moving to the Chicago area, he co-founded The Townsend Agency, Ltd. in 1979, and worked as an advertising executive for 17 years.
Throughout his time in the business world he felt drawn to create literature and art. One of his short stories, "Dragon with a Broken Wing," was selected by Ray Bradbury to receive first prize in a contest honoring the famous native of Waukegan, Illinois. [7] In 1996, Tillery resigned his position as chairman of The Townsend Agency to pursue his twin interests of writing and sculpture.
As a writer, his best-known work is The Cynical Idealist: A Spiritual Biography of John Lennon. The book, which grew out of his 2005 article for Philosophy Now magazine, [8] was the first to examine John Lennon as a man of ideas, exploring his impact on the world as a consequence of his spiritual growth and his self-generated humanist philosophy. Reviewer Grady Harp observed: "Without resorting to puffery or hero worship, Tillery places Lennon's accomplishments with the arts as well as with the framework of political upheaval of his day to reveal a man who will be remembered not only for his prodigious talent, but also for his influence on philosophical thinking." [9] The Cynical Idealist was selected as the official book of the 2010 John Lennon Tribute in New York City, [1] and subsequently translated into German, French, Portuguese, and Danish.
Based on its success, Quest Books published Tillery's Working Class Mystic: A Spiritual Biography of George Harrison in 2011, [10] and The Seeker King: A Spiritual Biography of Elvis Presley in 2013. The latter was selected as a featured book by the Patheos Book Club. [11] His other writings include Darkling Plain, inspired by his recollections of the Vietnam War, The Roots of the Wind, a novel drawn from his experiences on a scientific expedition to the Western Rift Valley in Africa, three comedic detective novels, three volumes of poetry, and Yeshua, My Beloved, an ambitious experiment in "novelized history," being a fact-based novel about Jesus derived from the research of hundreds of Bible scholars. [12]
In 2000, Tillery's sculpture They Also Serve was accepted by the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum for its permanent collection. [13] As a result of his connection with the museum, he was selected to create the centerpiece sculpture in the Chicago Vietnam Veterans Memorial [14] at Wabash Plaza, dedicated in 2005. [15] In 2004 he created the bust of Steve Allen for the Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood. [16]
Affiliated with the Fine Art Studio of Rotblatt Amrany from its founding in 1992, Tillery joined the studio team to create several prominent outdoor sculptures, including Luis Aparicio at U.S. Cellular Field, [17] T. Denny Sanford at the Sanford USD Medical Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, [18] and Ray Kroc and Ronald McDonald in downtown Chicago. [19] He was co-sculptor, with Omri Amrany, on the statue of Pat Tillman for the Arizona Cardinals football team, [20] and lead sculptor on the 2-ton, 9-foot statue of Jerry Colangelo for Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona, erected only a few blocks from Tillery's childhood home. [21]
On Veterans Day 2018 his 14-foot work, Defenders of Peace, was dedicated at the College of Lake County in Illinois. [22] In July 2019 his bronze sculpture of Johnny Appleseed was unveiled in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana. John Chapman (better known as Johnny Appleseed) was a resident of Fort Wayne in the final years of his life, and died there in March 1845. [23]
Tillery's life-size bronze statue of Richard G. Hatcher was dedicated in October 2019 in Gary, Indiana. Hatcher was notable for being the first African-American to be elected mayor of a major U.S. city. [24]
Tillery was lead sculptor on the bronze sculpture of Pete DeBusk, chairman of the Lincoln Memorial University Board of Trustees, which was unveiled in October 2021 in Harrogate, Tennessee. [25]
The Tillery-designed memorial for the American Legion post in Lake Forest, Illinois--a 13-ton structure of granite and white bronze to honor Lake Forest residents who died serving during the nation's wars--was dedicated in September 2023. Tillery wrote a poem to the fallen which was read at the event. [26]
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The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, commonly called the Vietnam Memorial, is a U.S. national memorial in Washington, D.C., honoring service members of the U.S. armed forces who served in the Vietnam War. The two-acre (8,100 m2) site is dominated by two black granite walls engraved with the names of those service members who died or remain missing as a result of their service in Vietnam and South East Asia during the war. The Wall, completed in 1982, has since been supplemented with the statue Three Soldiers in 1984 and the Vietnam Women's Memorial in 1993.
Three Soldiers is a bronze statue by Frederick Hart. Unveiled on Veterans Day, November 11, 1984, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., it is part of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial commemorating the Vietnam War. It was the first representation of an African American on the National Mall.
The Vietnam Women's Memorial is a memorial dedicated to the nurses and women of the United States who served in the Vietnam War. It depicts three uniformed women with a wounded male soldier and serves as a reminder of the important support and caregiving roles that women played in the war as nurses and other specialists. It is part of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and is located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., a short distance south of The Wall and north of the Reflecting Pool. The statues are bronze and the base is made of granite. Glenna Goodacre sculpted the memorial after being selected by the United States Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission, two groups that had previously rejected the idea for a memorial to women.
James Earle Fraser was an American sculptor during the first half of the 20th century. His work is integral to many of Washington, D.C.'s most iconic structures.
The Chicago Picasso is an untitled monumental sculpture by Pablo Picasso in Daley Plaza in Chicago, Illinois. The 1967 installation of The Picasso, "precipitated an aesthetic shift in civic and urban planning, broadening the idea of public art beyond the commemorative."
Frederick Elliott Hart was an American sculptor. The creator of hundreds of public monuments, private commissions, portraits, and other works of art, Hart is most famous for Ex Nihilo, a part of his Creation Sculptures at Washington National Cathedral, and The Three Servicemen, at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
General Philip Sheridan is a bronze sculpture that honors Civil War general Philip Sheridan. The monument was sculpted by Gutzon Borglum, best known for his design of Mount Rushmore. Dedicated in 1908, dignitaries in attendance at the unveiling ceremony included President Theodore Roosevelt, members of the President's cabinet, high-ranking military officers and veterans from the Civil War and Spanish–American War. The equestrian statue is located in the center of Sheridan Circle in the Sheridan-Kalorama neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The bronze statue, surrounded by a plaza and park, is one of eighteen Civil War monuments in Washington, D.C., which were collectively listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The sculpture and surrounding park are owned and maintained by the National Park Service, a federal agency of the Interior Department.
Julie Rotblatt-Amrany, is an American sculptor and painter, whose work explores the resurgence of the figure in modern art.
The statue of Michael Jordan, also known as The Spirit, is a bronze sculpture by Omri Amrany and Julie Rotblatt-Amrany that has been located inside the United Center in the Near West Side community area of Chicago since March 1, 2017. The sculpture was originally commissioned after Jordan's initial retirement following three consecutive NBA championships and unveiled prior to the Bulls taking residence in their new home stadium the following year. Depicting Basketball Hall of Fame member Michael Jordan and unveiled outside the United Center on November 1, 1994, the 12-foot (3.7 m) sculpture stands atop a 5-foot (1.52 m) black granite base. Although not critically well received, the statue has established its own legacy as a meeting place for fans at subsequent Bulls championships and as a rallying point for Chicago Blackhawks fans.
Erection is a 1971 short film by John Lennon with music by Yoko Ono.
Melzar Hunt Mosman was an American sculptor who made a number of Civil War and Spanish–American War monuments in Massachusetts.
Fathers Theodore Hesburgh and Edmund Joyce is an outdoor statue on the University of Notre Dame campus. Located on the South side of the Hesburgh Library facing the reflecting pool, the sculpture was designed and built by artist Lou Cella, a member of the Rotblatt-Amrany Fine Art Studio, and is currently owned by the University of Notre Dame.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a war memorial in Chicago, in the U.S. state of Illinois, dedicated on November 11, 2005.
In late August 1967, the English rock band the Beatles attended a seminar on Transcendental Meditation (TM) held by Indian teacher Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at a training college in Bangor in north-west Wales. The visit attracted international publicity for Transcendental Meditation and presented the 1960s youth movement with an alternative to psychedelic drugs as a means to attaining higher consciousness. The Beatles' endorsement of the technique followed the band's incorporation of Indian musical and philosophical influences in their work, and was initiated by George Harrison's disillusionment with Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, which he visited in early August.
A statue of basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar by artists Julie Rotblatt Amrany and Omri Amrany is installed outside Los Angeles' Crypto.com Arena, in the U.S. state of California. The bronze sculpture was unveiled in 2012. It depicts Abdul-Jabbar shooting his patent skyhook shot. Abdul-Jabbar was a member of the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association from 1975 to 1989.
A statue of basketball player Magic Johnson by Omri Amrany and Gary Tillery is installed outside Los Angeles' Crypto.com Arena, in the U.S. state of California. The sculpture was unveiled in 2004.
A bronze statue of Jerry West by Omri Amrany and Julie Rotblatt Amrany is installed outside Los Angeles' Crypto.com Arena, in the U.S. state of California. The sculpture was unveiled in 2011.
A statue of sportscaster Chick Hearn by Julie Rotblatt Amrany and Omri Amrany is installed outside Los Angeles' Crypto.com Arena, in the U.S. state of California. The bronze and steel sculpture was unveiled in 2010. An empty chair is provided next to the statue to allow people to sit in for a picture taking.
The Los Angeles Kings Monument is a monument by artists Itamar Amrany, Julie Rotblatt Amrany, and Omri Amrany, installed outside Los Angeles' Crypto.com Arena, in the U.S. state of California.
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