|
Biography
Best
known as a public artist, John Pitman Weber has led and co-led mosaic,
concrete relief, and painted murals for over 40 years, in Chicago, New York
City, Los Angeles, Minneapolis,
Paris, France, and Managua, Nicaragua.
During summer 2010 he served as a Cultural Envoy to Spain, working
with La Ciudad Pintada in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Alava, Spain.
He has co-created major mosaic commissions for Broward County,
Florida (2009) libraries and for Spencer, Iowa, the latter as part of
Artists and Communities, America Creates for the Millennium.
In 2010, he led students in the
creation of 12 panels of mosaic for Elmhurst College. He has led many
workshops and lectured in Mexico, France, Britain, and Beligium.
Weber has also been active in the studio, painting, drawing and
printmaking. He has participated
in major international and national travelling shows,
including the Museum of Modern Art’s “Committed to Print,”
the Jewish Museum’s “Bridges and Boundries,” “Kunst und Krieg,” the
recent “Poetic Dialogue Project,” and the current “Windows and Mirrors,”
from the AFSC, travelling nationally.
He is represented in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago,
the Spertus Museum, the DePaul University Museum, the Brauer Museum of
Valparaiso U., the Cohen Library of City College, CCNY, the Koehnline Museum
of Oakton College and the Elmhurst College Collection. He has had over 30
solo shows, including five in New York City.
In the 80’s and 90’s he showed frequently in worship spaces.
Weber co-founded the Chicago Mural Group (now Chicago Public Art
Group) with the late William Walker in 1970-71.
He authored, with Eva and James Cockcroft Toward A People’s Art
(Dutton, 1977), the classic account of the early years of the
contemporary mural movement, reissued in 1998 in an expanded edition by U.
of New Mexico Press.
Weber studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, L’Ecole
Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts, Paris, and Harvard University.
He learned printmaking with S.W. Hayter at Atelier 17, Paris, and
lithography with Ray Martin and Mark Pascal at the School of the Art
Institute. He taught at Elmhurst
College for 43 years and is now Emeritus.
His studio-home is in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood.
He has four sons.
|
