User:LadyofShalott/Harold Rittenberry Jr.

Harold Rittenberry Jr. (born 1938) is an "outsider" artist living in Athens, Georgia. He works with salvaged and scrap metal, making sculptures of "people animals... fish He began sculpting in 1990 with steel after his mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease.

In 2022, he was commissioned by University of Georgia President, Jere Morehead to create benches in honor of Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Hamilton Holmes. His work is permanently displayed in places including Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the campus of Emory University, the Atlanta Folk Art Park, created for the 1996 Summer Olympics by UGA art professor Robert Clements, and many places in Athens.

Awards and honors
In 2013, Rittenberry received the Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson Award, which "honors a living African American visual artist with a significant Georgia connection in an effort to raise his or her profile" from the Georgia Museum of Art.

In 2021, Didi Dunphy was awarded a Georgia Governor’s Award for the Arts and Humanities for her work at the Lyndon House Arts Center, specifically "including the Harold Rittenberry Sculpture Garden".