Albert Paley is a distinguished American metal sculptor and artist, celebrated for his monumental public artworks and intricate, dynamic metalwork creations that blend art and craftsmanship.

• Born: 1944
• Hometown: Philadelphia, PA
• Education: Temple University

About Albert Paley

Born in 1944, Albert Paley attended Tyler School of Art for both his B.F.A., finished in 1966, and M.F.A., finished in 1969. In 1969 he became a faculty member at the School of American Craftsmen, R.I.T. Early in his career, Paley’s concentration was on making “wearable sculptures,” jewelry that highlighted the relationship between the human body and the piece. This changed as time went on and his focus shifted to creating large scale pieces. In 1974 Paley won the Renwick Gallery’s national design competition, awarding him the commission to design decorative metalwork doors for the gallery shop. He is also the first metal sculptor to receive the Institute Honors awarded by the American Institute of Architects.

Albert Paley Works

Commissioned by both public institutions and private corporations, Paley has completed more than 50 site-specific works. Some notable examples are the Portal Gates for the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.; Synergy, a ceremonial archway in Philadelphia; the Portal Gates for the New York State Senate Chambers in Albany; Sentinel, a monumental plaza sculpture for Rochester Institute of Technology; as well as a 65-foot sculpture for the entry court of Bausch and Lomb’s headquarters in Rochester, N.Y. Recently completed works include three sculptures for the National Harbor development near Washington, D.C.; a 130-foot long archway named Animals Always for the St. Louis Zoo; a gate for the Cleveland Botanical Gardens in Cleveland, Ohio; a sculptural relief for Wellington Place, Toronto, Canada; Threshold, a sculpture for the Corporate Headquarters of Klein Steel, Rochester, N.Y.; and Transformation, a ceremonial entranceway for Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.

Pieces by Albert Paley can be found in the permanent collections of many major museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Broadly published and an international lecturer, Paley received both his BFA and MFA from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. He received honorary doctorates from the University of Rochester in 1989, the State University of New York at Brockport in 1996, St. Lawrence University, in Canton, New York in 1997, and the University of Gothenburg, in Sweden in 2012.