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Philip F. Palmedo has had a diversified career as a physicist, art critic, and author. His writings on art have included articles in journals, catalog essays, and several books on modern sculpture. In his four monographs on individual sculptors, Mr. Palmedo has explored the relationship between artists’ lives and their work. He has used those individual histories to understand the creative process and the nature of sculpture as an art form. One reviewer wrote of his most recent book, The Experience of Modern Sculpture, that it enables “both novice and experienced viewers of three-dimensional art to enrich their experience and deepen the joys of their perceptions.” That describes well the objective of his writing. 

Philip F. Palmedo received his undergraduate degree from Williams College, with an emphasis on Art History and Physics, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from MIT. He carried out research in nuclear reactor physics at Saclay in France and at Brookhaven National Laboratory. He left Brookhaven to found the International Resources Group, an international consultancy and later headed the Long Island Research Institute.

Mr. Palmedo has had an active, life-long interest in science, the arts, and in writing. A common theme in his writing has been the nature of creativity and a common goal the clear exposition of complex phenomena to the non-expert. He has written five books on sculpture with the objective of understanding and communicating the creative process and the nature of sculpture as an art form. One of his early essays on art (first published in 1967 in the Berkshire Review) was Kepler in the Brancacci Chapel, a discussion of the role of simplicity in the arts and in science. Further exploration of that relationship led to his article in MIT’s Leonardo magazine titled “Non-Sculpture: The Origins of Aesthetic Instincts,” and culminated in a recent book, Deep Affinities: Art and Science.

For many years Mr. Palmedo chaired the Art Committee at Brookhaven National Laboratory and was the first chairman of the Committee on the Pollock-Krasner House at the Stony Brook Foundation. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of Williams College, and now serves on the Council for the Arts at MIT, and is a Fellow of the Williams College Museum of Art.

Mr. Palmedo has two sons and lives in St. James, Long Island, N.Y. with his wife, Elisabeth.

                       Photo: Howard Romero 

 

                      Photo: Howard Romero