Julie Rotblatt-Amrany facts for kids

Julie Rotblatt-Amrany is an American sculptor (someone who makes art by carving or shaping materials) and painter. She is known for creating art that brings back realistic human figures into modern art.

Becoming an Artist

Julie Rotblatt-Amrany was born in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up in Highland Park, Illinois. She studied art at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She also spent a year studying in France at the University of Bordeaux.

Julie was very inspired by the famous artist Michelangelo. She became interested in drawing and sculpting the human body. At the time, many art schools did not focus on this type of art.

After college, Julie continued her training at the Art Institute of Chicago. There, she learned more about drawing, painting, and sculpting people from real life. When she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1982, she kept studying the human figure. She even studied human bodies at a special program for medical students to understand them better for her art. She also learned from sculptor Manuel Neri.

Julie helped with several art projects in the Bay Area, including a large painting for the Oakland Art Museum.

Studying in Italy

While studying with Manuel Neri, Julie became very interested in carving marble. In 1985, she traveled to Perugia, Italy, to draw from life and work with stone.

Later, Julie moved to Pietrasanta, Italy. This town is famous for its marble quarries, which are places where marble is dug out of the ground. Michelangelo used marble from these same quarries for many of his sculptures!

In Pietrasanta, Julie worked at a studio that created art for famous sculptors like Henry Moore. There, she made a sculpture called Transference in Time. This artwork showed her interest in how space, time, and our thoughts are connected forever. She also created a large bas-relief (a type of sculpture where shapes are carved into a flat surface) from a one-ton block of stone. This piece, called "Holding the Source," was sent to California but was sadly destroyed in an earthquake.

While in Italy, Julie met Omri Amrany, an artist from Israel. They got married in 1987. They lived in Israel for two years, where their son was born in 1989. That same year, they moved back to Chicago.

The Fine Art Studio

Back in the United States, Julie Rotblatt-Amrany taught art and worked in other art-related jobs.

In 1992, Julie and her husband, Omri Amrany, started their own business called the Fine Art Studio of Rotblatt-Amrany. They wanted to create a place like the art studios they had seen in Italy. Their studio was a place for teaching art, making art, and taking on special art projects for clients.

One of their most famous projects was creating the bronze statue of basketball legend Michael Jordan at the United Center in Chicago. They even won an award for this amazing sculpture!

Just as they were finishing the clay model for the Michael Jordan statue, Julie was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her journey to get better inspired her to create new artworks. She made Healing Energy for a cancer care center and Dancing Electrons for another cancer institute. Her illness made Julie think more deeply about how our minds, bodies, and energy are all connected.

Important Works (2000s and Beyond)

After recovering from her treatment, Julie Rotblatt-Amrany showed her art in Paris and at the Shanghai Art Fair in China. In 2001, she had her own art show at the historic Château d'Amboise in France. Her "Theatre of the Soul" exhibition had 30 sculptures and paintings and got a lot of attention.

In 2002, Julie completed her biggest project of that time: the Veterans Memorial Park in Munster, Indiana. This huge park, covering nine acres, included six different scenes with bronze sculptures, bas-reliefs, and other types of art.

Some of her other well-known works from the 2000s include:

• Quest for Exploration: James A. Lovell (2005): An art piece about astronaut James A. Lovell at Chicago's Adler Planetarium.
• Preservation of the Union (2006): A bas-relief for the Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois.
• Chicago White Sox 2005 Championship Piece (2007): A bas-relief of bronze and granite outside U. S. Cellular Field in Chicago, celebrating the baseball team's win.
• Chick Hearn (2010): A bronze statue of sportscaster Chick Hearn at Staples Center in Los Angeles.
• Jackie Chan Tribute (2010): A bronze statue of actor Jackie Chan for his company in Shanghai.

Julie also helped start The Julia Foundation. This group works to create a sculpture garden (a park with sculptures) at Fort Sheridan in Lake County, Illinois.

In the 2010s, Julie continued to create sculptures of famous people. She made Jerry West (2011) for Staples Center in Los Angeles and Scottie Pippen (2011) for Chicago's United Center. She believes that by showing the lives of inspiring figures, her art can give people hope and energy.

In 2014, the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science unveiled a bronze statue of Rosalind Franklin that Julie created. It stands near the university's entrance.

Notable Works

Here are some of Julie Rotblatt-Amrany's important artworks:

• The Spirit: Michael Jordan, sculpture
• Healing Energy, painting
• Perestroika I and II, sculpture
• Quest for Exploration: James A. Lovell, installation
• Veterans Memorial Park in Munster, Indiana
• George Halas Memorial, epic bas-relief
• Chicago White Sox 2005 World Champions, epic bas-relief
• Preservation of the Union, epic bas-relief
• Statue of Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles, California, sculpture (2024)
• Statue of Mike Modano, sculpture
• Statue of Ryne Sandberg, sculpture
• Statue of Kobe and Gianna Bryant, Los Angeles, California, sculpture (2024)