18 Facts About Boaz Vaadia

Boaz Vaadia was born on a small farm in Gat Rimon, Israel, and credits his parents with instilling a tremendous love for the earth in him and a sense of connection to it that amounted to veneration.

In 1969 Boaz Vaadia was drafted into the Israeli army and was assigned to an engineering unit.

Boaz Vaadia worked with a blacksmith who made tools for stone carvers, learning how such tools were made, and to appreciate the tools with which he worked.

In 1974, Boaz Vaadia received a major scholarship from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation to study in New York City.

Boaz Vaadia moved to New York City in 1975, where he studied at Pratt Institute and continued to pursue his career as a sculptor.

Boaz Vaadia made a great personal discovery very shortly after his arrival in New York, when he accepted its urban environment as being as natural to humans as the rural setting he grew up in.

Boaz Vaadia searched for materials in the city that he could relate to as a primal building block of his environment, and discovered those that would guide his work thereafter: bluestone pavement from the city's streets and slate roofing tiles, both of which were being discarded during New York's process of urban renewal.

In 1971, Boaz Vaadia graduated from the Avni Institute of Fine Arts in Tel Aviv.

Boaz Vaadia used the weight of the stone to provide the necessary gravitational force that would allow the piece to stand.

Boaz Vaadia understood that his chosen materials limited what could be built with them, and by respecting the structural properties of bluestone slabs, he created an artistic restriction for himself: each one of his sculptures must be able to stand and to hold together bound only by the force of gravity.

In 1987, Boaz Vaadia opened his practice to include limited editions of the stone sculptures cast in bronze, augmenting his capacity to explore new compositions through the relationships between multiple figures.

In 2002, Boaz Vaadia began to create portraiture, achieving a likeness through shape, form, and posture, while adhering to his signature style.

In 1975 Boaz Vaadia was the recipient of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation grant, and moved to New York to study at Pratt Institute.

Boaz Vaadia received a grant award from the Committee for the Visual Arts, Artists Space, New York, NY, in 1985 and from the Ariana Foundation For the Arts, New York, NY, in 1986.

Boaz Vaadia traveled to Japan to receive the Utsukushi-ga-hara Open Air Museum Award in 1992.

When he moved to SoHo in New York City in 1975, Boaz Vaadia met Ivan Karp, the legendary gallerist who would later become his dealer.

At the time of his death on February 25,2017, Boaz Vaadia was married to Kim Boaz Vaadia and had two daughters, Rebecca and Sara.

Boaz Vaadia worked until nearly the end, she said, and his last finished work was a large stone relief.