John (Jack) Kearney (1924-2014)
“There is wonder in the work of sculptor John Kearney, and that wonder — in the form of large-scale metal sculptures that dot the Chicago area — gives joy to any who pass by the Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, Scare Crow and Dorothy and Toto in Oz Park; the gorilla climbing up a wall in Uptown; three deer at the Aon Building; and creatures at the Museum of Science and Industry and the Lincoln Park Zoo,” Rick Kogan wrote in his obituary for the Chicago Tribune.
“His work is in museums across the world and was collected by luminaries including Studs Terkel, Brigitte Bardot, Johnny Carson, Norman Mailer and Kirk Douglas.
“Mr. Kearney, known as Jack, was also an influential teacher and mentor for generations of artists, and he was greatly admired for creating one-of-a-kind sculptures used as awards since 1980 by the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence. …
“Mr. Kearney’s most famous work began as what he always called a ‘happy accident.’
“His wife [Lynn] and two children, Jill and Dan, spent summers at an art colony in Provincetown, Mass. One day in the 1950s, Mr. Kearney brought a pile of auto bumpers from a local garbage dump. Tossing them on the ground in his studio [3 Aunt Sukey’s Way], he saw in the pile of metal a ballerina’s shape and created just such a sculpture. His course was set. Car bumpers were to become his medium.
“There was nothing gentle about his metal sculptures, most of them in the shape on animals. Though smooth to the touch, the animals were far too sturdy and hard to really be considered playful. They were, though, parts of the American dream — bumpers from the cars of the 1950s and 1960s — and as such, gave off a palpable energy.
“The rubberized bumpers on newer cars were unsuitable, and in the mid-1980s American Way magazine writer A.L. Brungardt observed that ‘Kearney’s art form will go the way of the Tyrannosaurus rex, one of the few animals he has yet to create.’
“Well, he did create a T. rex in the 1990s. A 19-foot-tall, 2-ton dinosaur, the largest sculpture he ever made, was part of what was planned to be one of the most ambitious projects ever attempted on the local art scene: five large metal beasts for the grounds of a suburban company.
“Those dinosaurs now ‘live’ comfortably in Texas. But the end, Mr. Kearney knew, was near. He told a reporter in the late 1990s, ‘I don’t know whether I’m going to run out of bumpers or steam first.'”