Sculptor Albert Paley (center) with Ironwood Gallery owners
Richard Herrmann and Betsy Halliday during
public art presentation in Fort Myers, Florida

Ironwood Gallery (Ridgefield, CT) has commissioned world-class sculptor Albert Paley to create a large scale work of public art on behalf of the city of Ft. Myers, FL. The selection of Mr. Paley to execute the project -- the first under the city's new public art initiative -- received unanimous approval by both the Fort Myers Public Art Committee and the City Council.

Mr. Paley and Ironwood Gallery owners Betsy Halliday and Richard Herrmann presented the design to public officials during a meeting in March. The estimated 20,000 pound, monumental steel sculpture is designed to be 25' high and will be sited at the entrance plaza to three residential high-rise riverfront towers in downtown Fort Myers. A formal dedication by the artist will take place in early 2008.

Ms. Halliday and Mr. Herrmann are using their expertise in dimensional fine art to focus on private, corporate and civic art commissions around the country. "We are extremely pleased to be working with Albert Paley, whose work we have admired for more than 25 years," said Herrmann. "We are looking forward to seeing the work progress from the cardboard scale model to ten tons of polychromed steel."

Mr. Paley is the subject of a new PBS documentary, "In Search of the Sentinel," about the fabrication of his 70-foot sculpture installed on the campus of the Rochester Institute of Technology. He has completed more than 50 site-specific works, including the portal gates of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian, the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, the St. Louis Zoo and the New York State Senate Chambers.

Mr. Paley's work is in the permanent collections of over 30 museums nationally and internationally, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Philadelphia Museum of Art, The British Museum and London's Victoria and Albert Museum. Broadly published and an international lecturer, he holds an Endowed Chair at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY and is the recipient of three Honorary Doctorates in Fine Art.