Otto Neals, painter, sculptor and printmaker was born in Lake City, South
Carolina. His family moved from the south to Brooklyn, N.Y. where he has resided ever
since.
He is basically self-taught, however, he did study briefly at the Brooklyn Museum
with Isaac Soyer and at the Bob Blackburn Printmaking Workshop with Mohammed
Khalil, Roberto DeLamonica and Krishna Reddy. He is proficient in many mediums
including oils, watercolors, pastels and wood and stone carving.
In 1958 he participated in the newly founded Fulton Art Fair where he met artists
such as Tom Feelings, Al Hollingsworth, Vivian Schuyler Key, Vincent Smith and Ernie
Crichlow and Jacob Lawrence who were the co-Directors of the fair. To date, he is the
only artist that has taken part in the exhibitions each year since its inception. He was also
a founding member of the Harlem based group called the Weusi Artists which maintained a gallery called, Nyumba Ya Sanaa.
Neals’ works are in the collections of several notables including Harry
Bellafonte, the Honorable Una Clarke, former N.Y.C. Council member, Randy Weston,
Musician, Congressman John Lewis, Ruby Dee and Oprah Winfrey. His works are also
included in the Ghana National Museum, The Studio Museum, and The Schomburg
Library. He was commissioned by the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation to create a work of
bronze, entitled, “Peter and Willie”, for the Imagination Playground in Brooklyn’s
Prospect Park for which he was awarded the N.Y.C. Arts Commissions Award for
Excellence in Design. Other commissions include ten bronze plaques for the “Harlem
Walk of Fame” and a bronze work called “Discovery” for The Brooklyn Children
Center.
His works have been exhibited at Kenkeleba Gallery, The Studio Museum, The
N.Y. State Museum in Albany, N.Y., The Herbert Johnson Museum at Cornell
University, Ithaca, N. Y. and one-man shows at The Schenectady Museum, Schenectady.
N.Y.,Benedict College, Columbia, S.C. and The Columbia Museum, Columbia, S.C. He
was also chosen to create a cover for the June 1986 cover of Black Enterprise for which
he also posed. Images of his works was also included in Ebony Magazine, Elan
Magazine, Sculpture Magazine, Time Out, African Voices, The International Review of
African American Art, and Who’s Who in American Art. The artist, writer, Elton Fax
included him in “Black Artists of the New Generation”, one of his many books about art.
