Barnett David Hodes

In explaining his approach, Barney Hodes says, “If the work is diverse, its basis is not. This is sculpture that comes from an understanding of what the body is, based upon what the body does—an approach that hit its high-water mark in Europe during the Baroque. It is also a tradition that centered around sculpting the nude life-size or larger.”

The combination of life-size work and anatomical function was the basis of the New Brooklyn School (now the New York Academy of Art), founded by Mr. Hodes and painter Francis Cunningham over thirty years ago.

Mr. Hodes was the chairman of the sculpture department at the Brooklyn Museum Art School from 1974 to 1980. He has taught at St. John’s University, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Brooklyn College, Friends Seminary, and the University of North Carolina.

In March 1999, Mr. Hodes was honored to have been chosen by his colleagues at the Art Students League of New York to join other League instructors in a show of mentors and teachers who have made a crucial difference to their students. Nothing, in more than forty years of teaching, has made him prouder.