Although he had shown signs of creativity at an early age, Norman Gardner at first, chose the academic road and earned an engineering degree at the college of the City of New York.

His love for beauty and artistic inclinations, however, lured him and directed his constructive efforts into fine art. Finally, his future was launched when he channelled his energies and implemented his expanding abilities with training at Cooper Union and later on at Pratt Institute heralding the beginnings of an auspicious career.

His earliest sculptures were innovative interpretations executed in gold, silver and bronze. Continuing in this vein, he progressed into larger bronze sculptural forms. Intrigued by the 7 foot high sculptures which he welded from sheet aluminum, buyers began to knock on his doors. Ever forging on, improving, improvising and orginating, he experimented with marquettes. These sculptural creations placed inside wooden frames, gave a 3-dimensional effect when hung on the wall; another attractive invention that appealed to the public.

For the last four decades, Gardner has been making sculpture, drawings, and

more recently paintings with woman as his subject. It is interesting to note the many influences of the art world which are reflected in his expansive work.

His charcoal sketches recall the myriad drawings we find in Eakins' studies of the nude. His figurative abstractions portraying blithely-spirited dancers recognize Archipenko as his inspiration. His five-figured works are reminiscent of Marcel Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase". The sculptures, cast in bronze, polished, patinated and even painted with white and delineated in dark edging give the contours a graphic kinship with Dubuffet's sculpture. And, too, Gardner borrows from both the Dada device of word play and the pop use of everday imagery in his paintings. As he has often reflected, " I try to achieve a verbal as well as visual meaning to each painting".

Most recently he was inspired by the Cyclades female images of ancient times, and redesigned the logo for the National Museum of Women's History.

His work is gaining in appreciation. And, at this point, he has already received more than a half dozen prizes, including awards from the Silvermine Guild of Artsts and the Heckscher Museum First Prize for Sculpture. Over 20 Galleries have given him Exhibitions from as far away as Jerusalem, to Acapulco, to Palm Beach, to Washinton, D.C. We must mention, too, the Pratt Institute Faculty Exhibition as well as Hammer Gallery in New York. His inclusion in private collections is too numerous to list.

No surprise that the National Museum of Women's History has chosen as one of its first fund-raising activities an Exhibit entitled "The Many Faces of Eve' as interpreted by Norman Gardner.

©The Fine Arts Trader 2009