breadline

In 1991, I was a down-and-outer in a moody Depression breadline. Both were firsthand experiences of George's literal shaping of bodies: Much more so than other artists characterized under the rubric of Pop, George was always deeply interested in human physicality (as evidenced in the current traveling survey of his work).

A second call came from South Brunswick in 1990, when George invited me to pose as a figure in a breadline. This was to be one of three bronze sculptures he had been commissioned to make for the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial on the banks of the Potomac River in "Washington, DC.

Once we got close to the breadline and could see it apart from its ponderous architectural setting, the sculpture took on a compelling intimacy.