Raymond Kaskey is a sculptor and architect living and working in Washington, D.C. Kaskey creates and produces large scale civic art, as well as smaller editioned bronze sculptures. Though his early training was strictly modernist, he soon reached back into history for inspiration. Drawing on sources like the ancient Greeks and Renaissance masters he reinterprets classical themes and formal strategies to make them relevant for today’s society and audiences. By combining continuity with the past with innovation and craft knowledge the Kaskey has produced a prominent body of public work.
The culmination of this process has been the creation of the architectural sculptures for the National World War II Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Prior to that his most famous work is “Portlandia,” a 38-foot-high hammered copper sculpture on the Portland Public Services Building in Portland, Oregon.
Other notable commissions include his bronze lions honoring fallen officers at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, D.C; the statue of Pierre de Coubertin at the Olympic Centennial Park in Atlanta, Georgia; and the ”Gem of the Lakes” fountain and the cast stone ornament of the Harold Washington Library, both in Chicago. Kaskey has received numerous U.S. General Services Administration Art in Architecture commissions in Courthouses around the country.