Introduction
Robert Berks (April 26, 1922 – May 16, 2011) was an American sculptor, industrial designer and planner. He created hundreds of bronze sculptures and monuments including the Mary McLeod Bethune Memorial, and the Albert Einstein Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Life
He grew up in Hecht House, Boston. He studied at the Boston Museum. In 1953, he married Dorothy “Tod” Berks.
One of Berks's most famous works is a bust of former President John Fitzgerald Kennedy that can be found in the Grand Foyer of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC.
A copy of his Bust of Abraham Lincoln was displayed in the Oval Office during the Clinton Administration. Another of his statues, that of the Swedish botanist and physician Carl Linnaeus, can be found in the Heritage Garden of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, Illinois. In 2005, he donated a sculpture of Einstein to Princeton University. In 2007, he made a sculpture of Fred Rogers for Pittsburgh.
He died on May 16th 2011 at the age of 89 from natural causes.
Public monuments
- Louis Dembitz Brandeis Sculpture, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, 1956
- Abraham Lincoln Bust, 1958
- Richard Caliguiri Memorial, Pittsburgh City-County Building Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
- Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, Department of Justice Washington, DC, 1969
- Mary McLeod Bethune Memorial, Lincoln Park, Washington, DC, 1974
- Albert Einstein Memorial, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC, 1979
- John F. Kennedy Bust, Kennedy Center Washington, DC, 1971
- Carl Linnaeus Monument, Chicago Botanic Garden, Glencoe, Illinois, 1983
- Reinhold Niebuhr Memorial, Elmhurst College, 1997
- Fred Rogers Memorial, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 2009
- "Memorial to Brandeis: 9-Foot Statue of Justice to Be Unveiled Nov. 13". The New York Times. April 15, 1956. p. 39.