George Trakas

Who is George Trakas?

George Trakas is a sculptor who was born in Quebec in 1944 and has lived in New York City since 1963. Many of his projects are site-specific installations, and he describes himself as an environmental sculptor. He often recycles local materials and incorporates them into his work.

Notable recent examples of his work include a waterfront nature walk at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Brooklyn, New York; another waterfront installation adjacent to the Dia:Beacon museum in Beacon, New York; and public art in the New York City Subway at the Atlantic Avenue - Barclays Center station.

Trakas taught sculpture at Yale University for 13 years and has also taught at other schools. He graduated from Sir George Williams University in Montreal and then went on to earn a bachelor's degree in art history at New York University in 1969. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1982, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1989, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Medal for Sculpture in 1996. Emory University awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2011.