Joe's Metal Sculptures                             In loving memory of JOE, 1918-2008.     BACK TO  Joe's Metal Sculptures                                                                    Self taught art links.

                                                                                                                                    

ABOUT THE ARTIST:    Joseph Nittermann, 1918-2008. Late of Berkshire County, Massachusetts.     Born in Poland, Joseph’s family came to the U.S. in the early 1920's. As a teenager in the depression, Mr. Nittermann dropped out of school and worked with the WPA. In later years, he stated that his job was to ‘look busy’.     Joe served with the Army in WWII, stationed chiefly in Iran, where he worked behind the lines in a supply depot. According to Joe, the only division of the armed forces that was  permitted to fly was the Air Force, so to accommodate his flight home, the necessary transfer was arranged.     After the war, he attended trade school, attained a G.E.D. and found employment as a knitting machine mechanic. Eventually, he went into business as a sweater manufacturer.     As a child, I used to see TV ads for the “name behind the label”.  Joe, worked as a subcontractor to the “name behind the label” thus becoming the name behind “name behind the label”. In that capacity he designed sweaters (uncredited), some of which were modeled in SEVENTEEN MAGAZINE.     In 1978, Joe and his wife retired from the business they ran together for 17 years and bought their home in Berkshire County, Massachusetts.     A mechanic at heart, Joe found beauty in machines and machine parts.     One day Joe was at an outdoor art show with his wife who expressed an interest in one of the metal sculptures. Joe answered, “I can do that”.  A visit to the local scrap yard followed and a few weeks later, the first sculpture was mounted on a tree stump by the couple's Berkshire home.     Over the next 20 years, a new sculpture appeared when the two components presented: machine parts that caught Joe’s eye and a tree stump to hold his creation.      Joe considered that his works displayed the beauty that was already built into the parts.       Inquiries should be directed to art@joes-sculptures.com.

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