Robert Shure – Sculptor & President of Skylight Studios

Robert Shure was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1948 and from an early age he had an interest in art and spent many hours drawing. Through elementary and high school he received several awards for his creative artwork. In 1966 he entered the New York Institute of Technology as a Bachelor of Fine Arts major. He graduated in 1970, cum laude, and received the “Gold Medal in Sculpture” award. This medal is given as the highest honor in sculpture by the New York Institute of Technology each year. In 1970 he entered the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Tufts University with a scholarship. He received a Master of Fine Arts for sculpture in 1973 and graduated cum laude. His sculpture was shown at several Boston galleries including The DeCordova Museum, The Institute of Contemporary Art, and the Parker 470 Gallery.

Upon graduating, he became an assistant at the traditional sculpture studio of Archangelo Cascieri and Adio diBiccari. This studio on Tavern Road in Boston had a long history of working on many prominent sculpture projects. Both Archangelo and Adio were internationally known designers, sculptors, and artisans who worked in plaster, clay, bronze, wood, and stone. Archangelo Cascieri was also the Dean of the Boston Architectural Center. From the early 1970’s through the 1980’s, Robert helped produce many of the public monuments, sculptures, memorials, and restorations completed at the Cascieri-diBiccari studio. A few of the hundreds of projects to which he contributed were sculptures at the National Cathedral, the conservation and restoration of Saint Gaudens original plaster Amor Caritas, the restoration and reproduction of Daniel Chester French’s Concord Minuteman, and many models, molds, and reproductions for the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

He became involved in all the specialties of the sculpture studio including designing, sculpting in clay, modeling, armatures, mold making, casting in plaster, architectural ornament, conservation, and restoration. As Mr. Cascieri and Mr. diBiccari gradually retired, Robert continued the tradition of the sculpture studio. Also, as a result of working at the Tavern Road Studio, he met Lino Giust, who was a good friend and colleague of Adio diBiccari. Lino was another Italian artisan that immigrated to the Boston area and was a master mold maker, plaster caster, and plaster conservator. Upon his arrival to Boston, he purchased the Caproni Company, which was one of the finest studios in the world that produced and restored plaster casts. Robert extended his training by working directly with Mr. Giust. Lino was of the same generation as Adio diBiccari and Archangelo Cascieri, and retired at the same time. He passed on the Caproni Studios to Robert. In 1990, Robert combined both the Cascieri/diBiccari Studios and the Caproni Studios into a new studio at its new location in Woburn, Massachusetts. Since then, it has been one of the most active and diverse sculpture studios in the country, working on original designs, sculptures, monuments, restorations, as well as providing quality plaster reproductions. He is currently creating many significant public and private monuments and sculptures. He received the Federal Design Achievement Award in 1995 for his heroic size sculpture relief of George Washington in the Washington Monument.

Continuing the tradition, his studio, staffed with approximately sixteen master craftsmen and assistants, are actively working on many diverse sculpture related projects. Such work includes the conservation of antique sculpture and monuments and restoration of sculptural elements on historic buildings including The Old State House in Boston and The Washington Monument. Recent restoration/conservation projects have included work on three Renaissance fountains at the “Elms” for the Preservation Society of Newport County, for which he received the 2005 Laurel Award. Other conservation projects have been the restoration and replication of the sculpture at Johnson Park, Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey, and the restoration and replication of two heroic size Rhinoceros sculptures originally created by Katherine Lane Weems for the Bronx Zoo. The studio works with a worldwide clientele of committees, museums, institutions and architects. A few of Robert Shure’s recent public sculpture monuments have been the Cy Young Memorial at the site of the first World Series, the Sigmund Freud Memorial at Clark University, the John Stark Memorial at the Bennington Battle Grounds, Bennington, Vermont, the Joe DiMaggio Memorial at Yankee Stadium, the Massachusetts Fallen Firefighters Memorial, and the Strand Theatre Fire Memorial in Brockton, Massachusetts. He is currently working on a sculpture for the Special Olympics at the new Yawkee Sports Training Center, and a portrait of American entertainer George M. Cohan. At this time, Robert has accumulated over 38 years of hands-on experience working in the field of sculpture.