Jo Hess came to sculpture by a long and winding path even though her formal art background is in painting. She studied at the University of South Alabama, Spring Hill College in Mobile and the Instituto des Artes in Mexico.
Her interest in languages took her to France, Spain and Italy, where she was fascinated by the sculptures of Rodin, Carpeaux and others.
Subsequently, she toured art museums from Greece to Russia and Japan to Bangkok, studying different forms of sculpture though still concentrating on painting. Her growing and intense desire to create three-dimensional art brought her in contact with the noted North Carolina sculptor, Earline Heath King, and Patricia Boyd Wilson, well-known writer for the Christian Science Monitor. They encouraged and inspired her so greatly that she immediately plunged into the fascinating world of sculpture.
The seminars she has attended with the renowned Italian sculptor, Bruno Lucchesi, and at the Scottsdale Artists’ School with such notables as Glenna Goodacre, George Lundeen and Jon Zahourek, are invaluable experiences.
Jo’s one-man shows have been exhibited in Mobile, Alabama at the Fine Arts Museum of the South, Providence Hospital, M. C. Farmer Municipal Airport, Chamber of Commerce Building, Donald Gallery, Mobile College, University of South Alabama Women’s and Children’s Hospital Sculpture Garden. Other venues include Art Gallery Originals of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Loveland (Colorado) Sculpture Park, as well as in private collections throughout the U.S. and Europe.
In 1987 she was presented the Medaille de la Ville by the Mayor of Archachon when two of her sculptures were unveiled there.
Her busts of prominent citizens, limited editions and garden sculpture are displayed in airports, museums, hospitals and sculpture gardens in numerous private and corporate collections nationwide and in Europe.
Jo’s final contribution to the art world was to play a part in establishing a sculpture park on the grounds of the University of South Alabama Women’s and Children’s Hospital. The idea was to provide a place of beauty and serenity for patients dealing with serious illness. At the very beginning of the planning stage, Jo committed an edition of ‘April’ to the park. Later her daughter Linda donated an edition of ‘First Plié’. Friends and family who contributed to the Jo Hess Sculpture Fund donated the final edition of Jo’s life-size garden figure ‘Flora’. Jo’s son Charles Jr. and wife Trudy also donated a limited edition of ‘One on One’, a sculpture created by a close friend of Jo’s, and fellow sculptor Ann LaRose.
Three of Jo’s sculptures are in the park. See pictures of the park here.
Read more about the park here.
See all of the sculptures in the park.