George Aarons (born Gregory Podubisky, in St. Petersburg, Russia, 1896 - died in Gloucester, Massachusetts 1980) was a distinguished sculptor who lived and taught in Gloucester, Massachusetts, for many years until his death in 1980. He had, many students in the area and he designed Gloucester's 350th Anniversary Commemorative Medal.
Aarons' father, a merchant, moved the family from Russia to the United States when Aaron was ten years old. As a teenager Aarons began taking drawing classes during evenings at Dearborn Public School in Boston. In a later interview he did not remember how young he was when he started with the classes but he chuckled about the fact that the nude model had to partially dress on account of his young age. He went on to study drawing and painting at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1916. His passion for sculpture dates back to a serendipitous meeting at the Copley Society in Boston: an established sculptor invited Aarons to his studio and offered him some clay to "play around" with.
Aarons later moved to New York City to study with Jo Davidson, and other Paris-trained masters at the Beaux-Arts Institute. He apprenticed under Richard Brooks, Robert Baker and Solon Borglum but eventually returned to the Boston area.
The Great Depression hit him hard and. Like most of his fellow sculptors, he worked for the federal Works Progress Administration to stay afloat. A promotion to "project supervisor" and the corresponding $5 per week pay hike allowed him to propose to long-time girlfriend Gertrude Band and the wto were married in 1938.
The young couple bought a barn in Brookline and converted it to a residence and studio. He also taught a lot and made many life-long friends in this way. Not himself a religious man, he nevertheless did a lot of sculptural, religiously themed work for Jewish organizations.
Aarons had a stroke in the mid-1970s that left him unable to speak. Gertrude kept to his side, but his declining health prevented him from being the artist he had been. Some old friends who had been students helped him with some sculptural work, but he seems to have done little after 1973. He died at Addison Gilbert Hospital in Gloucester on Nov. 24, 1980, leaving behind Gertrude, who died in Gloucester on May 5, 1989.
His works are in the collections of the Museum of Art in Ein Harod, Israel; Fitchburg Art Museum in Massachusetts, Musée de St. Denis in France; Hilles Library at Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Hillel House at Boston University in Massachusetts.
He did reliefs for Siefer Hall at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts (1950); Edward Filene (the founder of Filene's Department Store and a philanthropist) on the Boston Common; Fireman's Memorial in Beverly, Massachusetts; a memorial to Mitchell Frieman in Boston; the U.S. Post Office in Ripley, Mississippi; and at the Cincinnati Telephone Building; the Combined Jewish Philanthropies building in Boston (1965); and a commemorative medal for the 350th Anniversary of the City of Gloucester, Massachusetts (1972).
Sourced from the sources listed in the Resources section.