John Safer

Over the next ten years the Safer-Scott partners continued to collaborate on private and public projects. The eleven foot-high (3.4 m) mirror finished, Interplay, was commissioned for the LEED wing of the $340M Kimmel Cancer Center expansion at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, DC. In 2014 Scott began negotiations with MGM Resorts International for a centerpiece at MGM National Harbor in Maryland. The 60 foot high (18.3 m) stainless steel sculpture, Unity, weighting eighteen thousand pounds and unprecedented in its scale, was installed two years later on November 12, 2016—one month before the opening of the $1.4B resort.

As a youngster, Safer was ahead of, and therefore smaller than his classmates in school, so it was later that he discovered his own athletic prowess. Safer has awards in marksmanship, baseball and bowling. Safer, now ninety, still plays competitive golf. In November 2012, Safer and his partner Jack Frazee won the Lyford Cay Shootout. Later that week, Safer and his team won the "B" flight in the Lyford Cay Four-Ball Invitational tournament, a tournament they won in 2007, when Safer was 85.

Safer continues to create sculpture. He works with his stepdaughter Kathryn Scott, to whom he taught his trade and offered his mantle. In 2007, they began work on a monumental sculpture, Quest, for the Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute. The 35-foot-high (11 m) stainless steel fabricated sculpture and state of the art research center, the Robert H. and Clarice Smith Building, was dedicated two years later, on October 16, 2009, 80 years to the day after the pioneering institute's first building made its debut. Safer, a patient, donated the multi-ton sculpture as a gift of appreciation It is one of the largest gifts of art that Johns Hopkins has received. In December 2011, Scott and Safer began work on a model for a monumental sculpture for the Marine Aviation Memorial.

Safer has been awarded two honorary degrees: Doctor of Philosophy from Daniel Webster College and Doctor of Literature from Lees-McRae College. In May 2009, Safer received a third honorary degree– Doctor of Fine Arts from George Washington University. Along with Rahm Emanuel and Jeanne L. Narum, Safer delivered a commencement speech, from the National Mall, to the graduating class of 2009.

In 1999 Safer became Chairman of the Board of Materia, Inc. Materia specializes in Olefin metathesis, and is noted for its Nobel Prize–winning Green chemistry.

In 1989 the U.S. Department of State again sent Safer sculptures to Europe. As of 2008, the Department has exhibited Safer sculpture in London, Paris, Beijing, Dublin, Bern, Lisbon, Brussels, Bucharest, Belgrade, Nassau, Washington, and New Deli. Both public and private exhibitions of Safer sculpture can be seen in venues throughout the world.

As the commissions grew in number they grew in size as well. Interplay, created in 1987, is 18 feet (5.5 m) high. Leading Edge, created in 1989, is 20 feet (6.1 m) high. His hallmark work, Ascent, which stands at the entrance of the Smithsonian Institution's Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Airport in Virginia, is 75 feet (23 m) high.

In 1985 Safer was invited to exhibit sculpture in the Pioneers of Flight Hall at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, in Washington, D.C. He has the distinction of being the only artist to have ever had an exhibition in the central gallery of the most visited museum in the world.[1]

John McArthur, the Dean of Harvard Business School visited the palace at Zarzuela where King Juan Carlos had installed Limits of Infinity. Moved by the sculpture, Dean McArthur returned to America and commissioned Safer's 20-foot-high (6.1 m) Search for Harvard Business School. The patinated bronze was installed on the Business School grounds in 1984 adjacent to the spot where Safer's daughter, Janine, received her MBA five days later.

In 1974 Safer entered the world of banking, becoming Chairman of the Executive Committee of Financial General Bankshares, and in 1981 the Chairman of the Board of DC National Bank which later became part of Bank of America.

Safer's works stand in museums, galleries and embassies throughout the world. In 1972 and in 1989 the U.S. Department of State sent a group of Safer sculptures abroad to be exhibited as examples of America's finest art. He died in December 2018 at the age of 96.

In 1972 President Gerald Ford presented Safer's Limits of Infinity to King Juan Carlos of Spain as a gift of state. This in turn led to several major events in Safer's sculptural career. As a result of a news report of President Ford's gift, the Dean of Harvard Law School sought to acquire a Safer sculpture for the school. This culminated in 1979 with the installation of Judgment, a monumental bronze work which was presented to Harvard Law School as a gift of Safer's class of 1949. This was Safer's first monumental public work.

In 1971 the renowned art collector and U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain, Walter Annenberg, invited Safer to have an exhibition at the American Embassy in London.

Safer never formally studied art. His first forays into sculpture were experiments with plastic swizzle sticks. In 1957 he made his first creations, and he continued to experiment, eventually beginning to carve Lucite. In 1969 Safer had his first show in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at the Michael Berger Gallery. Several shows in private galleries followed with a major exhibition at the Pyramid Gallery in Washington, D.C.

In 1953 Safer's father became terminally ill and he returned to Washington, D.C. to take over his father's affairs. Although Safer successfully parlayed these into a major real estate development business he did not find his commercial life a rewarding one.

Safer's earliest sculptures in the 1950s and 1960s were small works of Lucite. Over time he also began to work in bronze and stainless steel. The pieces became larger and in 1979 his first public commission, Judgment, a multi-ton patinated bronze, was installed at Harvard Law School in Cambridge,Massachusetts.

After Safer graduated from Harvard Law School in 1949 his fascination with the emerging technology and promise of television prompted him to take a job as a handyman at WXEL in Cleveland, Ohio. He quickly rose to the position of program director. During this time his innovations led the new independent station to "beat the ratings of all the network affiliates."

Safer became a first lieutenant and served in India, Burma and China. When the war ended in 1945 he opted for an additional year in the Air Force hoping to fulfill a dream of seeing Europe's great works of art while he was stationed there. His new assignment allowed him to visit the Parthenon, the Tate, and the Louvre. While in Rome, he learned that he was suddenly to be transferred to Athens. Unwilling to leave Italy without visiting the Accademia in Florence, Safer "borrowed" a jeep to make the drive to see Michelangelo's David. The Accademia was closed but he convinced the caretaker to let him in. The two hours Safer spent alone with the masterpiece resulted in a seminal experience, but it was Michelangelo's other sculptures in the Gallery, The Prisoners, which gave Safer an insight that was to impact his entire life and transform his artistic career.

John H. Safer (September 6, 1922 – December 7, 2018) was an American sculptor. Safer's varied career spanned work in theater lighting, television, real estate, politics and banking.