Sculptor John Henry, co-founder of the Sculpture Fields at Montague Park, died this week at his home in Brooksville, Florida, after a long battle with health issues, according to a news release from the Sculpture Fields organization. He was 79.
Henry had lived in Chattanooga for more than two decades, and his work and legacy loom large thanks to the Sculpture Fields, where large works by Henry and others from around the world are on display at 1800 Polk St.
Henry and his wife Pamela opened the 33-acre venue at Montague Park in 2016 as an outdoor art museum that features large-scale works of art from around the world. It includes more than 15 permanent and 24 visiting pieces and is the largest sculpture park in the southeastern United States, according to the release.
Tom Bartoo was the first chairman of the Sculpture Fields nonprofit organization and said he remembers listening to Henry talk about his vision for the park and then helped him clear some of the land.
"He would talk about turning a blighted condemned field into an internationally known sculpture garden, and I would spend time with him blazing out this legacy field," Bartoo said. "I could see his vision and helped him get that on paper. It was remarkable to watch him work. He taught me a great deal about perseverance.
"I am very grateful, and we all should be, for his vision for what he saw for this piece of property. It's just remarkable."
Current Chairman Bill Overend said of Henry, "I got to know him well over 20 years. It was a real honor to get to know an artist well enough to know how his personality translated to his work.
"His personality and his work were monumental. We are sad for his departure, but we are glad for what he's done for Chattanooga.
"Will miss him but we have a mission to keep his legacy at the park alive."
Chattanooga potter Peggy Petrey was a founding member of the nonprofit group that oversees the Sculpture Fields and served as a committee member for a few years as well. She said Henry was very community-minded. She also said it is often overlooked just how well-known and respected he is around the world for his work.
"When he comes in, he is wanting to do something like Sculpture Fields, he comes without an ego," Petrey said. "He comes in to do something for the community, and he wanted to put Chattanooga on the map. To have something like that and those pieces here is really amazing."
Offering free parking, a self-guided tour, educational resources for students, and space and trails for fitness activities, the Sculpture Fields has become a popular place for people to take a stroll while enjoying the massive art pieces.
Henry's pieces can be found in places like Korea, Venezuela, China, Germany, Switzerland, France and Italy in addition to the U.S.
His pieces can be seen locally at the entrance to Chattanooga State Community College, at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, in the Bluff View Arts District and, of course, at the Sculpture Fields.
"John is probably one of the premier living modernist sculptors of this century. There are not many people who've accomplished what he has," John Clement, a New York City sculptor who has known and worked with Henry for more than 25 years, told the Times Free Press in 2016. "People see his work all over the country; they know his work, but they may not know his name."
Internationally recognized Chattanooga artist Genesis the Greykid wrote in a text that Henry was "friendly, funny and serious about his craft."
Isaac Duncan III met John Henry while an art student at the university of Kentucky. Henry would often enlist the "strong backs" of UK students for installation work, and Duncan was one them. He later moved to Chattanooga to work for Henry and it was here "where I got my PhD at the house that John built," he said.
"It was hard work, but we traveled the world and I learned so much.
"In the sculpture world, John is an artist's artist. He's a blue-chip artist, but it was nothing for him to pull a new artist aside and talk to him."
Today, Duncan owns Duncan Sculpture & Services in Chattanooga.
Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com