George Segal

George Segal (November 26, 1924 – June 9, 2000) was an American sculptor and painter best known for his life-sized, monochromatic plaster figures cast from the human body and placed in mundane, everyday environments to evoke themes of isolation, routine, and the human condition.

Born in the Bronx, New York, to Jewish immigrant parents from Eastern Europe, Segal grew up in the Bronx and later New Jersey, where his family operated a poultry farm; he attended Stuyvesant High School, studying science before pursuing art at institutions including Cooper Union, Pratt Institute, New York University (where he earned a B.A. in art education in 1949), and Rutgers University (M.F.A. in 1963). His early career focused on large-scale expressionist paintings of nudes and abstract works influenced by Abstract Expressionism, but in 1957, he participated in his first "Happening" organized by Allan Kaprow on his family farm, marking a shift toward performance and environmental art.

George Segal was born on November 26, 1924, in the Bronx, New York, to Jewish immigrant parents Jacob and Sophie Segal, who had emigrated from Eastern Europe. His father ran a kosher butcher shop in the Bronx. The family, which included Segal's older brother Morris, relocated around 1940 to a poultry farm in South Brunswick, New Jersey, where Segal grew up helping with farm work during the Great Depression and World War II. The family maintained a secular Jewish household. Segal later recalled his rural upbringing influencing his interest in everyday human activities.

Segal's daughters occasionally joined him at public events and family outings, reflecting his efforts to integrate personal and professional spheres without deep involvement in his work. Raised in a Russian-Jewish immigrant family in Great Neck, New York, Segal maintained a connection to his Jewish heritage through cultural identity and selective observances, though he rarely discussed specific practices publicly.