Seymour Lipton, Dentist-Turned-Sculptor, Dies

Seymour Lipton, a self-taught sculptor whose first career was dentistry, is dead at age 83.

The innovative artist, whose leaf-like metal statues often resembled floral forms, died Friday at a Long Island hospital, where he was being treated for bone cancer.

The son of a candy store owner, Lipton began drawing and painting at age 12, but started his professional life as a dentist. His artistic expression found its vehicle in sculpting, and he used his time away from dentistry to model clay or carve wood or stone in a small studio adjacent to his office.

He first exhibited his sculptures in 1933. His work then consisted mostly of wood and reflected a keen sense of social struggle. His first one-man show was at the American Contemporary Artists Gallery in 1938. Four years later he abandoned wood for metal casting and moved away from concepts of the human figure into skeletal forms, often of animals.

Later his twisting, turning metal shapes were turned into floral analogies, and it was not until the end of the 1950s that he returned to the human form.

Lipton’s work has been shown in museums around the world and has won numerous awards. His “Archangel,” which stands almost nine feet high and took five months to complete, was unveiled in New York’s Philharmonic Hall in 1964.

His other works include “Moloch,” “Sanctuary,” “Prophet,” “Manuscript” and “Gateway.”

Lipton once told an interviewer: “Art has a kind of sacred significance to me. I may be giving art too much importance in my own life or anybody else’s life, but I feel this deeply.”