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ED Dwight's Biography...

Mr. Ed Dwight

Ed Dwight, the first African American trained as an astronaut and the nationally known sculptor of major monuments displayed throughout the United States.Mr. Dwight joined the U.S. Air Force in 1953, pursuing his dream of flying jet aircraft. He became a test pilot, and in 1961 earned a degree in aeronautical engineering from Arizona State University. At the suggestion of the National Urban League's Whitney M. Young, Jr., the John F. Kennedy administration chose Dwight as the first black astronaut trainee in 1962. Catapulted to instant fame, he was featured on the covers of Ebony, Jet and Sepia, and in news magazines around the world. After serving fourteen years as an Air Force Pilot and engineer, in 1966 he resigned and joined the IBM Corporation in Denver, serving as a Marketing Representative and Systems Engineer. It was at this time that his interest in sculpture was kindled-and in 1967 he held his first one-man show.

He left IBM and after several years in private business, he took a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Sculpture from the University of Denver. He also taught sculpture and operated the University's metal casting foundry

Ed now concentrates on large scale commissions, museum and gallery exhibits and is represented by galleries in many major cities and Hawaii. He also teaches and conducts seminars throughout the United States on sculpture, art history and his two major series. Ed Dwight Studios in Denver is now one of the largest privately owned production and marketing facilities in the western United States. Dwight has sculpted great works of celebratory African American art, including international monuments, the Underground Railroad in Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario; a Dr. Martin Luther King Memorial in Denver's City Park; a bust of George Washington Williams in the Ohio State Capitol in Columbus, Ohio; the Black Patriots Memorial on the mall in Washington, D.C.; the South Carolina Black History Memorial in Columbia, South Carolina; and the Alex Haley-Kunta Kinte Memorial in Annapolis, Maryland. The Quincy Jones Sculpture Park in Chicago brings his total major works to thirty-five, some of which are on permanent display at the Smithsonian Institute.