Career
In 1972, he was commissioned to paint the royal invitation for the opening of the Sydney Opera House by Queen Elizabeth II.
In 1977, he carved John Wayne’s face in a 116-ton rock that had fallen onto Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. It sold in 1979 for US$1.1 million to an Arizona company, and currently resides in the library of Lubbock Christian University in Lubbock, Texas.
Strong created a life size bronze statue of John Lennon, entitled Imagine. He began work on the sculpture as a tribute to Lennon six months before the celebrated musician’s death in 1980. Originally unveiled in New York City by Andy Warhol, it currently is in the possession of a private collector.
Strong painted a portrait of Michael Jackson entitled The Book which reportedly sold for $2.1 million to Hiromichi Saeki Corp in 1990, making it the most money every paid to a living artist for the sale of a portrait. Jackson once referred to Strong as a modern day Michelangelo. This portrait is claimed to be the only portrait that Michael Jackson sat for an artist's rendering and made its first appearance since 1992 on Thursday July 2, 2009. It was displayed for public viewing in Harlem NY near the Apollo Theatre to honor Michael Jackson.
In the 1980s, Strong also completed work on the very impressive U.S. Presidency Monument and :The National Monument to the U.S. Constitution both commissioned by former Chief Justice Warren Burger. The monument was to have been dedicated by President George W. Bush and placed on the grounds of the White House. Currently these two monuments are part of an unprecedented nationwide educational program entitled The Spirit of Freedom about the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.
In the mid 1980s, Strong's painting Homage a Henri Rousseau became the cover artwork for the Fleetwood Mac album Tango in the Night. The original painting had been bought by singer/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham which was hanging in his home at the time.
Strong created NASA’s National Space Exploration Monument for display in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. On July 16, 1994, Vice President Al Gore announced this monument honoring the men and women of the United States Space Program and celebrating the anniversary of man’s landing on the moon. In the late 1990s Strong proposed the City of Angels Monument project designed to create a symbol for Los Angeles along the lines of New York’s Statue of Liberty or Paris’ Eiffel Tower. The $4 billion development was to cover 122 acres (0.49 km2) in downtown Los Angeles with the central focus being a 750-foot (230 m) tower as the base for a 350-foot (110 m) female angel, wings spread, holding a sword of light above her head.
Read more about this topic: Brett-Livingstone Strong
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“Work-family conflicts—the trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your child—would not be forced upon women with such sanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)
““Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.”
—Ruth Behar (b. 1956)