Sculptor Saint Clair Cemin works with an extensive range of materials and techniques- from carving to building mixed media- establishing a repertoire of effects from subtlety to overstatement.

A Brazilian artist currently living in New York City his work has been hailed as "refreshing in its lack of pretense," and has been exhibited worldwide including at Boston's Fogg Museum and the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard.

He was born in 1951 in Alta Cruz, Brazil, and he studied at the Ecole Nationale Superiore des Beaux Arts, in Paris, France. Currently living in New York City, Cemin uses a range of traditional materials: stone, iron, wood, bronze, marble and terra-cotta, with a variety of techniques that include direct carving, modeling and the creation of mixed-media works. The scale of his semi-figurative/abstract sculptures explores table-top height to towering out-door fountains and statues.

His interest in public sculpture began in 1990 with his first public-art commission, "Mercury Fountain", for a town square in Reston, Virginia. In 1996, the bronze version of "Hood Ornament" was purchased by Grounds for Sculpture for permanent installation at their museum and sculpture park in Hamilton, New Jersey. In 2000, three monumental bronze sculptures were installed in public sites: "Tree", in "Bergen, Norway; Spring", in Bastad, Sweden; and "Open", in Schamburg, Illinois.
All three projects were cast by foundries in China.

In 1999, Cemin, while visiting the Beijing Fine Art Institute in China, met Li-Gang, a young artist who introduced him to the model-making studio and foundries with century-long experience in monumental bronzes. He hired Li-Gang as his on-site assistant and translator. Two models were begun of clay over a steel and wood armature. As these sculptures progressed, Cemin returned several times to China to work on the models and oversee the bronze finishing.

In 1995, he received the Biennial Award and Purchase Prize from the Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo and the Hakone Open-Air Museum, Japan.

Selected Exhibitions
2004 Cool and Collected, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC
2004 Gods of the People, Brent Sikkema, New York, NY
2002 Museo De Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico
2001 Secret Victorians/Contemporary Artists and a 19th Century Vision, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA
2000 Rough Edge: Selections from the Broad Art Foundation, The Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA
1999 17 Contemporaries, Artists from America, Italy, and Mexico – the Eighties, The Menil Collection, Houston, TX
1998 Saint Clair Cemin, Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL
1998 Saint Clair Cemin, Man Woman Tree Hand Boat House Car Golem, Galleri Lars Bohman Stockholm, Sweden
1998 Decorative Strategies, Center for Curatorial Studies Museum Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
1997 Objectivity: International Objects of Subjectivity, Contemporary Art Center of Virginia Virginia Beach, VA
1997 Saint Clair Cemin, Galeria Camargo Vilaça São Paulo, Brazil
1996 The Mediated Object, Fogg Art Museum Cambridge, MA
1996 Saint Clair Cemin, California Center for the Arts Museum Escondido, CA
1996 Donald Baechler / Saint Clair Cemin: Painting and Sculpture from the Collection, Fisher Landau Center, Long Island City, NY
1995 Saint Clair Cemin: Sculptures, Gian Ferrari Contemporanea, Milan, Italy
1995 Zitelle Centro Culturale di Esposizione e Comunicazione, Venice
1995 Biennale, Venice, Italy
1995 Altered & Irrational, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
1995 The Second Fujisankei Biennale, The Utsukushi-ga-hara Open-Air Museum Japan
1994 Escultura de Saint Clair Cemin, 1984-1993, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Monterrey, Mexico
1994 XXII Bienal Internacional de Sao Paulo, Fundacao Bienal de Sao Paulo, Brazil
1994 Contemporaneo, Monterrey, Mexico [Traveled to: Center for the Fine Arts, Miami, FL]
1993 The 21st Century, Into the Future with Paracelsus, Kunsthalle, Basel, Switzerland
1992 Doubletake, Collective Memory & Current Art, Hayward Gallery, London, [Traveled to: Kunsthalle, Wien]
1992 Documenta IX, Kassel, West Germany
1992 Fisher Landau Center, Long Island City, New York
1991 Directions - Saint Clair Cemin, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C
1989 Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

Collections:

Eli Broad Family Foundation, Los Angeles, CA
Emily Fisher Landau Collection, Long Island City, NY
Chase Manhattan Bank, NY
FNAC (Fonds National d'Art Contemporain), Paris, France
Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Monterrey, Mexico
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
Reston Town Center, Reston, VA
Rooseum, Stockholm, Sweden
Hakone Open-Air Museum, Japan
Whitney Museum of American Art, NY

Awards
1995 The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo and the Hakone Open-Air Museum, Japan
1995 Biennial Award and Purchase Prize

To Artist Showroom