Don Justin Meserve

For over 40 years, Don Justin Meserve has devoted his career as an artist to creating sculpture, easily moving from direct carving in stone and wood to metal casting. According to Meserve: “My vocation is sculpting in the traditional sense: I shape material as the spirit moves me. My task as a sculptor is to draw on the continuum of work produced by great craftspeople over the centuries and to use this knowledge to inform my own effort.”

Meserve’s formidable understanding of materials is grounded by his undergraduate education in industrial design followed by his exposure to the rich craft tradition of postwarScandinavia. After working on staff in major Danish architecture offices and completing postgraduate work at theRoyalAcademyinDenmark, Meserve taught at Rhode Island School of Design for 10 years. Leaving education, he turned to sculpting full-time, with occasional breaks for historic preservation projects.

The consummate professional, Meserve has been praised for “his careful respect for history and practice of sculpture.” Meserve’s preservation projects have included the restoration of a Civil War monument and a cathedral rose window, and he worked on the renovation of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Public Library. Meserve’s sculpture is lyrical and 19th-century in tone, often incorporating classical and ecclesiastical themes inspired by his expertise in historic preservation. The brilliance of his sculpture lies in what he chooses to include and, equally vital, what he chooses to leave out. He has competed for, and won, prestigious commissions, most recently carving four basalt columns for the new Mandarin Hotel in New York. Recognized today as one of the Northeast’s most experienced and creative sculptors, he has exhibited award-winning work throughout the United States and overseas

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