About the Artist
Otto Neals (b. 1931, Lake City, South Carolina. Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY). He is largely self-taught, however, he briefly studied at the Brooklyn Museum with Isaac Soyer and at the Bob Blackburn Printmaking Workshop with Mohammed Khalil, Roberto DeLamonica and Krishna Reddy. He is proficient in many mediums including oils, watercolors, pastels and wood and stone carving. Neals was a founding member of the Harlem based group called the Weusi Artists which maintained a gallery called Nyumba Ya Sanaa. His works are in the collections of several notables including Harry Belafonte, the Honorable Una Clarke, former N.Y.C. Council member, Randy Weston, Musician, Congressman John Lewis, Ruby Dee and Oprah Winfrey. His works are also included in the Ghana National Museum, The Studio Museum, and The Schomburg Library. He was commissioned by the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation to create a work of bronze, entitled Peter and Willie, for the Imagination Playground in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park for which he was awarded the N.Y.C. Arts Commissions Award for Excellence in Design. Other commissions include ten bronze plaques for the “Harlem Walk of Fame” and a bronze work called Discovery for The Brooklyn Children Center. His works have been exhibited at Kenkeleba Gallery, The Studio Museum, The N.Y. State Museum in Albany, N.Y., The Herbert Johnson Museum at Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. He has held solo exhibitions at The Schenectady Museum, Schenectady. N.Y., Benedict College, Columbia, S.C. and The Columbia Museum, Columbia, S.C.
