HARRY GLAUBACH

*Harry Glaubach (1925-2017) Growing up as a child of the Depression, Harry Glaubach began carving the houses and buildings of his Lower East Side neighborhood. The second of four children of a German immigrant cabinetmaker, Harry’s family was too poor to afford store-bought toys, so he fashioned his own out of wood. He continued this hobby, turning it into a 40+ year career as a self-taught artist. Harry’s world-famous wood sculptures focus on New York City icons like Katz’s Deli, Yankee Stadium, Ebbets Field, Abbott & Costello, Marilyn Monroe, the Marx Brothers, Coney Island, and most frequently, the Lower East Side. The work is nostalgic, harking always to a more simple past. “Nobody was jealous of anyone else because no one had nothing,” Harry says. “Life was slower then, and you enjoyed it. Even funerals weren’t in the rush they are today.” The past, he believed, was beautiful.

Harry created thousands of pieces over the years, including works commissioned by famous actors and athletes like James Cagney and Darryl Strawberry, in addition to all those who purchased his work at art fairs and markets around New York, most notably on weekends in Union Square and at the perennial art fair at Washington Square Park. Today his work can be found in homes and galleries around the world, each with its own story of how the owner discovered Harry and his work.