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NEIL FERBER is an English Sculptor.

Neil Ferber's father was a child refugee from Germany in the 1930s, who remained in England after the war and married an Englishwoman. Neil was born in Wales and educated in Cardiff. He became interested in art while still at school, making models and objects in a shed at the bottom of his parents' garden. He went to Bulmershe College, Reading where he studied sculpture under Dennis Harland and Alf Parks both of whom had left head of department jobs at Leeds Art College to run a new Art Department at the Reading College. He exhibited at the Museum of Reading Gallery in 1971.

In 1977 he bought Bongate Mill a derelict watermill on the river Eden at Appleby in which he established sculpture and pottery workshops and an art gallery where he organised summer art exhibitions of his own work and other artists including the water colourist Sir Charles Holmes He has been the recipient of Northern Arts Awards. Exhibiting mainly in the North of England at venues including Abbot Hall Art Gallery in Kendal, Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery in Carlisle and The View Two Gallery in Liverpool. He has promoted British improvised music being the creator and organisor of the Appleby Jazz Festival from 1989 - 2007.

Reclusive and individualist he has exhibited sculpture only occasionally. He has always avoided following fashionable or commercial trends in art, believing in the traditional values of fine art techniques. Through a period of many varying styles and trends, Neil has consistently worked in an abstract mode, modelling in clay or wax and casting sculptures in a variety of modern materials, experimenting with different textures and finishes. His work is architectural, constantly exploring the relationships of mass. space and line in his own particular way. The main influences throughout his career have been European - looking towards Brancusi, Picasso and Eduardo Chillida

In 2001 he visited Italy and met the sculptor Fiore de Henriquez, who had created an artistic centre is a medieval Tuscan hamlet called Peralta. He established a workshop there and began using the studios and foundaries of Pietrasanta, a unique town that for centuries has been a focal point for sculptors world wide.

In 2005 he had and exhibition in Italy with the British painter Phil Morsman in the La Mec Gallery. Vicenza and in 2008 was part of a joint exhibiton on the theme of Andrea Palladio at Casa Palladio, Vicenza.

He and his partner the author, Kathleen Jones now spend most of the year living in Italy where he is currently working in clay and gesso in Peralta and in Pietrasanta working in marble at the Studio Sem.

Exhibitions

 * England
 * Reading Museum and Gallery
 * Tullie House, Carlisle,
 * Abbot Hall, Kendal
 * The View Gallery, Liverpool
 * The View Two Gallery, Liverpool
 * The Scott Gallery, Lancaster
 * Italy
 * Lamec Gallery, Vicenza
 * Casa Palladio, Vicenza
 * Peralta, Tuscany