Jay Warren
Biography
Thomas Jay Warren was born in the Mississippi Delta in 1958. He studied figure sculpture with Andrzej
Pitynski at the Johnson Atelier in Hamilton, New Jersey, one of the world's largest sculpture foundries. For ten years
Jay was Head of the Modeling/Enlarging Department of the institute. During these years he built his reputation
with such works as the Medgar Evers Memorial, the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the First
Football Game Monument.
In 1992 Jay was presented with the Young Sculptors Award by the National Sculpture Society. He was
inducted into the NSS as a Professional Member in 1997.
Jay works exclusively by commission creating portraits, monuments and memorials both public and private.
Commissions in recent years have included the 8' John Coltrane Monument in High Point, North Carolina and the
Congressman Wayne Aspinall Monument in Palisade, Colorado. Veterans Day 2008 a 12' Victory figure, an 8' Lone
Soldier and a 5' Battlefield Marker for the New Jersey World War II Memorial were unveiled in Trenton. Over the
course of twenty years Jay has created the sculpture for all three of New Jersey's major veterans' memorials:
Vietnam, Korea and WWII. In 2009 he returned to High Point, North Carolina for the dedication of the February 11
Monument, a bronze relief commemorating the 1960 lunch counter sit-in by the city's high school students.
In 2010 Jay's 8' portrait of Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. was unveiled in Justice Brennan's
hometown of Newark, New Jersey. This led to the 2012 commission to create a statue of tennis champion Althea
Gibson for the city. Also in 2012, the 7' portrait of Julius M. Kleiner for the new Julius M. Kleiner Memorial Park in
Meridian, Idaho was unveiled at the park's grand opening. Idaho was the eighth state to commission a Warren
public sculpture. The Congressman Donald Payne Memorial, a 7' portrait of New Jersey's first black legislator, was
dedicated in Newark, making it Jay's fourth public monument in the city and third major project unveiled in 2012.
In October 2013 two new, over life-size portrait statues will be dedicated in Newark: former New Jersey
Govenor Brendan Byrne and Steven N. Adubato, founder of the non-profit community development
organization, The North Ward Center.
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