Liberty Couple in steel.
In the 1970s, leading up to the Symposium, Sharon Corgan Leeber was prolific and very involved in the Dallas art scene. Her sculptures are often made from recycled metal, crushed bumpers and some polished chrome. Primarily she shaped impressionistic human forms.
In 1971 Janet Kutner of the Dallas Morning News described an exhibition of Leeber’s works as “solid anatomical abstractions welded primarily of bent and beaten car bumpers. Miss Leeber’s pieces in painted or polished welded steel and cast aluminum are far above the average level of regional sculpture I have seen in gallery situations here of late.”
Many of her pieces are not the scale of the Liberty Couple in the Liberty Hill’s Sculpture Garden, others are but a couple of feet tall, while the pair facing each other are over 6 feet tall.
Leeber taught photography and sculpture at El Centro College for 11 years, taught at UT Dallas in the sculpture department in 1977 and at UT Dallas she started the International Artists in Residence program. She founded Architectural Arts Company (AAC) that same year. AAC specialized in working with architects, developers and landscape architects coordinating sculpture in public and large-scale development projects. She left teaching in 1981 and began working throughout the world. AAC coordinates and implements comprehensive fine arts collections and fine arts sponsorship strategies for corporate and private clients throughout the US, Europe, Asia, Southern Africa, and South America.
The materials for Sharon Corgan-Leeber’s piece was donated by the Hitchcock Salvage Company of Georgetown.
Page 2A Thursday October 1, 2021
Sharon Corgan-Leeber
Sharon Corgan-Leeber’s letters to Mel Fowler indicate an abundance of enthusiasm about the International Sculpture Symposium to be held. She suggested the names of other sculptors as possibilities for the Symposium and she offered encouragement.
Ms Corgan-Leeber is married to Dallas sculptor Tom Piccolo. They will be attending the Symposium together October 11th through November 30th. They recently held a show at the Sol del Rio Gallery in San Antonio.
Sharon teaches in the Art Department at El Centro College in Dallas. She mentioned in her letters that one of her fellow teachers, Dana Smith, has a grandmother who was born in Liberty Hill.
Sharon’s artistic medium is welded steel. As a source for her materials she suggested “a junkyard with some really fine totaled bumpers (not decent ones - they lack class)”.
The Hitchcock Salvage Company of Georgetown is donating the steel for the sculptures. When the sculptors arrive for the Symposium, they will select the steel themselves.
Sharon wrote, “The piece can be finished naturally, somewhat protected with plastic spray (partial rusting doesn’t look bad) or can be chrome plated (very effective for outside).”