"Until the public starts making sculpture, it's not public art."

(Robert Murray, 1991.)

Robert Murray

was born in 1936 in Vancouver, grew up in Saskatoon and lived briefly in Mexico,

His primary and secondary education were in Saskatoon. He attended the Regina College School of Art and has studied with Ken Lochhead, Arthur McKay, Roy Kiyooka, Wolfram Neissen and Richard Simmons. Additional courses of study were undertaken at the Emma Lake Artists Workshops with Jack Shadbolt, Will Barnet, Barnett Newman, John Ferren and Clement Greenberg.

Robert Murray began his artistic career as a painter and print-maker, but moved into sculpture when he recognized it was not developing the new ideas of modernism and abstraction as quickly as other mediums were. His first three dimensional work was a sculpture commission for the Saskatoon City Hall in 1959.

In 1960, he moved to New York; he maintained his studio-loft there until 1994. He is presently living and has a studio near Unionville, PA. (just west of Philadelphia), with a summer residence and studio on Lookout Island, Pointe au Baril, Ontario.

Most of Murray's sculptures have been made under his direction in metal fabricating shops, others have been built in the sculptor's studio or cast in foundries. Many of his larger sculptures, situated throughout North America, were purchased as completed works or commissioned for particular locations.

The work of Robert Murray can be found in numerous public and Private collections including the Alaska State Museum, the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontario, the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Conn, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Art Gallery of Vancouver, Berkeley Museum, San Francisco, Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio, Dayton Art Centre, Ohio, Delaware Art Museum, Detroit Institute of Arts, Everson Museum, Syracuse, New York, The Gallery, Strafford, Ontario, the Joseph Hirshorn Museum, Washington, Los Angeles County Museum, Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Montreal Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Museum of American Ark, New York, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, New Brunswick Museum of Art, New Jersey State Museum, Norman McKenzie Gallery, Regina, Power Museum of ArDt, Sydney, Australia, Philadelphia Museum, Reading Museum, Pennsylvania, Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, the Simon Fraser Gallery, B.C., Storm King Art Centre, New York, University of British Columbia, the Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Storm King Art Centre, Mountainville, N.Y., Grounds For Sculpture, Hamilton, N.J.