Tom Otterness (born 1952) is an American sculptor best known as one of America’s most prolific public artists. Otterness’s works adorn parks, plazas, subway stations, libraries, courthouses and museums concerning the world, notably in New York City’s Rockefeller Park in Battery Park City and Life Underground in the 14th Street – Eighth Avenue New York Subway station. He contributed a balloon (a giant upside-down Humpty Dumpty) to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. In 1994 he was elected as a devotee of the National Academy Museum.
His style is often described as cartoonish and cheerful, but with political. His sculptures allude to sex, class, money and race. These sculptures depict, among new things, huge pennies, pudgy characters in business suits following moneybag heads, helmeted workers holding giant tools, and an alligator crawling out from under a sewer cover. His aesthetic can be seen as a riff on capitalist realism.
Known primarily as a public artist, Otterness has exhibited across the United States and internationally, including New York City, Indianapolis, Beverly Hills, The Hague, Munich, Paris, Valencia and Venice. His studio is located in Gowanus, Brooklyn.
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