About Sig Lichterman

Born in the coal mining town of Pittston, Pennsylvania, in 1909, when horse and buggies were the means of transportation, Sig began sculpting as soon as he was given mashed potatoes in his high chair. He continued to experiment with different media throughout his life, using what he found readily available, including Ivory Soap. 

After attending the University of Pennsylvania, he established a dental practice in New York where his skills in casting and working with metals were honed. He said  “dental school gave me a good foundation for sculpture—plaster impressions and casts, wax carving, gold casting, soldering, and ceramics – all the basic principles.”  Serving in the Medical Corps during World War II found him stationed on the island of Tinian (from which the Enola Gay took off) in the South Pacific.

Armed with a boy-scout knife, he wanted to carve something. Before World War I, the Germans imported “coca bola” to use as every fourth tie for a narrow gauge railroad used to transport Tinian’s only crop, sugar cane, to the mills.  Sig found the old railroad bed and dug up some “black and shriveled” pieces of wood: He discovered it was unusually beautiful, fine grained and hard when carving some of the pieces now in the display case.

Returning after the war to his practice and to sculpting in New York, he formally studied with Jose de Creft and Seymour Lipton at the New School of Social Research.  Works from this period were created primarily from a variety of woods and stones, including marble, granite and alabaster.   During the 1960s Sig took bronze casting, arc welding and design workshops at SUNY Purchase and in the 1970s, began showing his work across Westchester County in New York State. His several awards from this period include a medal from the White Plains Armory show.  Newspaper articles

about his work followed, including a mention in People Magazine. He donated a marble statue to the children’s library in Irvington, New York.

Retiring to Coconut Creek Florida in 1984 with his wife Betty, he began to laminate wood, primarily marine mahogany, and create blocks from which to sculpt.  He now had the space to work on a larger scale taking full advantage of the community wood studio at Wynmoor. Many of the pieces made in this technique have been exhibited at the Coral Springs Museum of Art, the Ft. Lauderdale Museum of Art, and in many Community Art Shows at Wynmoor.  Varied in media, style, and approach, much of Sig’s early work was carved from the original tree stump or piece of stone which suggested subject matter based on its form.  In casting he created from both idea and material.  His latest works were constructed from ideas that could be easily expressed in larger shapes.  His total body of work shows a progression towards the more abstract.