JERRY THE MARBLE FAUN
JERRY THE MARBLE FAUN (born 1955, Brooklyn, NY) lives and works in Queens, NY. He began hand-carving stone in 1987 and has most recently pursued ceramic sculpture. Jerry held his first exhibition in 2014 at Jackie Klempay Gallery, Brooklyn and has appeared in exhibitions at SITUATIONS, New York; CASTLE, Los Angeles; Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York; Sculpture Center, Queens; 2nd Floor Projects, San Francisco; The Elaine de Kooning House, South Hampton, Geary Contemporary, New York, Bureau of General Services/Queer Division, New York; and Canada, New York; amongst others. In 2017, Jerry participated in the Shandaken Project's residency program at Storm King Art Center in New Windsor, NY. His work will appear in the forthcoming MoMA PS1 exhibition, Hard Ground, opening May 2024.
Additionally, Jerry is well known as the Bouvier-Beales’ handyman from the Maysles brothers’ 1975 documentary Grey Gardens. While living at Grey Gardens, Edith “Little Edie” Bouvier-Beale gave Jerry the nickname “the Marble Faun,” which Jerry accepted as a fated path to artmaking. In addition to sculpting stone, Jerry worked as a gardener for the royal family of Saudi Arabia, with Wayland Flowers and his puppet, Madame, during their cabaret acts in the ’70s, and for twenty years as a taxi cab driver in New York City. Jerry has received widespread recognition and critical praise for his artwork from major outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Observer, Forbes, Vogue, Interview, and Architectural Digest.