Arthur Marshak, Sculptor To Be Profiled in
Marquis Who's Who in America ® , 2004
Publication for artistic achievement

Coconut Creek, Florida –October 24, 2003 - Arthur Marshak, Sculptor of Life who resides in Coconut Creek, Florida has been selected to be included in a biographical directory published by Marquis Who's Who ® , the leading biographical reference publisher of the highest achievers and contributors from across the country and around the world.

Marshak will be profiled in the 58 th Edition of Who's Who in America ® 2004 which will be available in November.

Since 1899, when A.N. Marquis printed the First Edition of Who's Who in America ® , Marquis Who's Who has chronicled the lives of the most accomplished individuals and innovators from every significant field of endeavor-including politics, business, medicine, law, education, art, religion and entertainment. Today, Who's Who in America ® remains an essential biographical source for thousands of researchers, journalists, librarians and executive search firms around the world.

Marquis now publishes many Who's Who Titles, including Who's Who in America ®, Who's Who in the World ®, Who Was Who in America ®, Who's Who in Finance and Industry ®, Who's Who in American Law ®, Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare ®, Who's Who in Science and Engineering ®, and Who's Who of American Women ®.

Arthur Marshaks Sculptures can be viewed at www.bronzesculptures.net.

Sculptor of life

Artist turns bronze into a thing of beauty.
By Amy Ward
Forum Staff Writer

Carved straight from his heart, soul and imagination, the bronze sculptures of Coconut Creek resident Arthur Marshak continue to find themselves among the private and public collections of art collectors across the globe.

The loyal artist's work has been featured in exhibits everywhere from the Museum of Modern Art in Miami to the Modern Museum of Unet in Bordeaux, France.

But don't think for a minute that all of this popularity has gone to his head. Marshak remains the quiet, shy artist type who likes to bury his head and his heart in his work.

"I don't try to do cutesy things that probably would sell a lot faster than the type of work that I do that has a depth and a meaning to it," he said. "I don't try to do the type of work that's probably more saleable. I like people to think in depth about my work. [To think] what the artist was thinking about when he made it."

Each of Marshak's sculptures starts with an emotion or a thought.

"A lot of the feelings that I have had have been reflected in my work itself," he said. "I didn't cut off my ear like Van Gogh, but there are times that I think I know how he felt."

Challenged by some serious health issues for which he had to go through many operations, Marshak went through a very difficult period in his life.

After that, he found his emotions surfacing in his artwork more than they ever had before, and it helped him heal, he said.

"It turned my life around," he said of his artistic expression. "If it wasn't for that, I don't know what I would have done."

His pieces have a continuous theme of life carved within each crevice and shadow of the work. Scenes such as the growing and development of a human fetus, as seen in his piece "Birth," display the evolution of human existence without the womb.

"It's all about life, it's living," he said.

Other pieces, like his work "Illusion," exhibit his interpretations of human character: The piece shows a sculpture of a faceless woman holding out a mask in front of her.

"The concept behind that is you can see a person, and you can like their face or dislike their face but you really don't know what's behind the face," he said. "So sometime looks are deceiving, and it takes time perhaps to get to know what's really behind the face."

The process of creations behind his works is pretty involved, Marshak said. First, he carves his idea into a block of wood, plaster or clay and then sends off to have a mold made out of it. Molten bronze is then poured into the mold, and the piece comes out looking exactly like what he had carved out of the original materials.

He then takes the piece and finishes it by applying special patinas or chemicals to create a colored finish on the bronze. Cupric nitrate creates a finish of greens and blues, while ferric nitrate will give you a warm reddish color, he said.

Marshak's wife, Theodora said it's sometimes hard to get him to realize how talented he is.

"Most artists like Arthur, they tend to want to just do their artwork and not promote themselves," she said.

Sister Mary Ellen of Delaware is one of Marshak's Collectors. She purchased his piece "With These Hands," a heart-warming exhibit of two large hands onto which human figures cling.

The pieces he creates seem to find plenty of admiration.

"The piece itself indicates all the many ways in which the small hands hold on to the larger hands. I suppose [they] gain strength from it," she said.

Marshak's recent exhibits have taken place in Miami and Palm Beach.

Amy Ward can be reached by email at award@tribune.com.