National Sculpture Society awards the 2022 Stanley Bleifeld Memorial Grant to Eric Serritella. The Grant is awarded to a sculptor with outstanding ability who has created a body of work inspired by nature which includes works of sculpture in bas-relief and in the round. Sculptors Eugene Daub (from CA), Jay Hall Carpenter (from MD) and Suzanne Storer (from UT) served as this year’s jurors.

In describing Serritella’s work, Daub says, “Serritella demonstrates a love and commitment to sculpture inspired by nature. In many examples, his work straddles figurative references and sculptural design with the verisimilitude of nature. His choice of material – ceramic clay – so effectively mimics organic surfaces that are tortured with the stress of time and experience.”

Storer adds, “At first glance Eric Serritella creates convincing illusions of found wooden branches and forms. Then he plays with the form, surfaces and details adding textures, knots, etc. that are often just beyond what nature does alone. The results are wooden configurations that elicit human feelings made entirely in clay.”

Serritella’s works are the in collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Mint Museum. In 2016, Serritella was the James Renwick Alliance’s Distinguished Artist in Ceramics at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. His sculptures have been represented at some of the world’s top art and design fairs including Frieze NY, TEFAF Maastricht, Design Miami, Art Basel, The Salon: Art + Design (NY), Masterpiece London, and SOFA Chicago. He recently was an artist in residence at Starworks Center for Creative Enterprise in North Carolina. While there, he worked in the ceramic studio and experimented in the glass hot shop, creating pate de verre glass objects.

Stanley Bleifeld (1924-2011) was a sculptor, Fellow, and Member Emeritus of the National Sculpture Society and served as president from 1991-1994. The Grant was made possible through a generous donation from his widow, Naomi Bleifeld, and will be awarded annually in perpetuity. It consists of a $5000 cash award and a quarter-page ad in Sculpture Review magazine.