James R. Avati of Redbank, New Jersey, and Salt Lake City, is an excellent and sensitive sculptor who studied at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts, at the Arts Students League in New York City, at Ricks College in Idaho, and at Brigham Young University. He was a graduate student in the Department of Art at the University of Utah (M.F.A., 1988) where he worked with Angelo Caravaglia in the development of his frequently powerful art. Avati won major commissions to create three life-size figures for an education monument in Mesa, Arizona; a life-size General Patrick Edward Connor for Fort Douglas, Utah; two life-size figures for the Utah Valley Community College in Orem; one life-size figure for the Sandy, Utah Courthouse; another life-size figure for Hill Air Force Base in the Ogden area; and a 7-foot 4-inch Philo T. Farnsworth for the U.S. Capitol Building.

Biography courtesy Artists of Utah